INFATUATION 


Again  she  was  leaning  forward  with  parted  lips. — Page  86 


INFATUATION 


BY 
LLOYD  OSBOURNE 

AUTHOR  OF 

The  Motormaniacs,  The  Adventurer,  Etc. 


With  Illustrations  by 

KARL  ANDERSON 


New  York 
GROSSET   &   DUNLAP 

Publisher? 


ComuQHT  1909 
THE  BOBBS-MF.RIUI.L  COMPANY 

MARCH 


INFATUATION 

CHAPTER  I 

PHYLLIS  LADD  lost  her  mother  at  twelve; 
and  this  bereavement,  especially  terrible  to 
an  only  child,  brought  with  it  two  conse- 
quences that  had  a  far-reaching  effect  on  her  char- 
acter. An  ardent,  high-strung  nature,  acquainted 
so  early  with  a  poignant  sorrow,  gets  an  outlook  on 
the  world  that  is  so  just  and  true  as  to  constitute 
a  misfortune  in  itself.  A  child  ought  not  to  think ; 
ought  not  to  suffer;  ought  not  to  understand.  In- 
dividuality, sympathy,  sensibility  awaken  —  quali- 
ties that  go  to  make  a  charming  human  being  — 
but  which  have  to  be  paid  for  in  the  incessant 
balance  of  our  complex  existence.  Phyllis'  school- 
fellows were  no  longer  the  same  to  her;  she  felt 
herself  a  person  apart;  though  she  played  as  gaily 
as  any  of  them,  and  chattered  her  head  off,  and 

I 


2  INFATUATION 

tripped  blithely  along  Chestnut  Avenue  entwined 
in  the  arms  of  her  companions,  she  was  aware,  down 
in  her  secret  heart,  that  she  was  "  different." 

At  twelve,  then,  her  path  diverged  from  the  com- 
monplace, in  which,  as  we  all  have  to  admit,  how- 
ever reluctantly,  the  chances  for  a  happy  life  are 
best. 

The  second  consequence  of  her  mother's  death 
was  to  bring  her  into  contact  with  a  scarcely  known 
individual  —  her  father.  This  grave,  handsome 
man,  who  sat  behind  a  newspaper  at  breakfast,  and 
who  was  not  seen  again  till  dinner  time ;  who  drove 
away  every  morning  behind  a  liveried  coachman 
and  a  pair  of  shining  bays  to  a  region  called  "  the 
office  " ;  whose  smile  and  voice  were  always  a  shy 
delight  to  her  —  this  demigod,  admired,  unknown, 
from  whom  there  emanated  a  delicious  sense  of  se- 
curity and  strength,  now  suddenly  drew  her  to  his 
heart,  and  became  her  world,  her  all. 

Robert  T.  R.  Ladd  was  the  president  of  the  K.  B. 
and  O.  Railway.  Rich  himself,  and  the  son  of  a 
rich  man,  his  interests  in  Carthage  were  varied  and 
many,  engaging  his  activities  far  beyond  the  great 
road  that  was  associated  with  his  name.  Carthage 
was  an  old-fashioned  city;  and  the  boys  who  had 


INFATUATION  3 

grown  up  together  and  succeeded  their  fathers  were 
clannish  to  a  degree  little  known  in  the  newer  parts 
of  this  country.  Joe,  who  was  prominent  in  elec- 
tricity and  gas,  might  want  to  consolidate  a  num- 
ber of  scattered  plants,  and  to  that  end  would  seek 
the  assistance  of  Tom  and  Harry  and  Bob.  George, 
perhaps,  in  forecasting  the  growth  of  Carthage  a 
little  too  generously,  was  in  temporary  straits 
with  his  land-scheme  —  well,  he  would  ask  Tom 
and  Bob  to  tide  him  over,  making  a  company  of 
himself,  and  taking  them  in.  Frank  and  his 
brother,  in  converting  their  private  bank  into  the 
Fifth  National  —  induced  as  much  as  anything  by 
the  vanity  of  seeing  their  own  names  on  their 
own  greenbacks  —  would  feel  the  need  of  a  strong 
local  man  on  the  new  directorate.  Would  Bob 
oblige  them?  "Why,  with  pleasure,  though  if 
somebody  else  would  do  as  well  — "  "  Oh,  we 
must  have  you,  old  fellow." 

Such  was  Carthage  —  at  least  the  Carthage  of 
Chestnut  Avenue,  of  the  long  lines  of  stately  and 
beautiful  mansions  on  what  was  called  the  West 
Side,  the  Carthage  that  supported  the  Symphony 
Orchestra,  owned  the  parterre  boxes  at  the  opera, 
dined,  drove,  danced,  and  did  business  together  — 


4  INFATUATION 

as  compact  and  jealous  a  little  aristocracy  as  any 
in  Hungary  or  Silesia.  Of  course  there  was  an- 
other Carthage  —  several  other  Carthages  —  one  a 
teeming  riverside  quarter  where  English  was  an 
unknown  tongue,  a  place  black  with  factory  chim- 
neys, full  of  noise  and  refuse,  dirt  and  ugliness, 
where  forty  thousand  nondescript  foreigners  pigged 
together,  and  contributed  forty  thousand  pairs  of 
very  grimy  and  unwilling  hands  to  the  material 
advancement  of  the  city  and  state.  There  was  a 
business  Carthage,  with  banks  and  sky-scrapers,  and 
vast  webs  of  wires  that  darkened  the  sky.  There 
was  a  pleasure  Carthage  that  awoke  only  at  night, 
blazing  out  with  a  myriad  lights,  and  a  myriad  en- 
ticements. There  was  a  middle-class  residence 
Carthage;  a  second-class  residence  Carthage;  an 
immense,  poor,  semi-disreputable,  altogether  dreary 
Carthage  that  was  popularly  alluded  to  as  "  South 
of  the  slot,"  the  name  dating  from  the  time  of  the 
first  cable-car  line,  now  long  since  discarded. 

But  to  return  to  Phyllis  Ladd. 

In  losing  her  mother,  it  might  be  said  she  had 
discovered  her  father.  At  first  perhaps  it  was  pity, 
loneliness,  almost  terror  that  caused  Mr.  Ladd  to 
take  this  little  creature  in  his  arms,  and  hold  her 


INFATUATION  5 

as  he  might  a  shield.  He  had  idolized  his  wife ;  he 
hardly  knew  how  to  go  on  living  without  her;  one 
day,  in  his  office,  as  his  old  friend  Latham  was 
leaving  him,  he  had  pulled  open  a  drawer,  and  taken 
a  loaded  revolver  from  it.  "  Latham,"  he  said, 
with  a  very  slight  tremor  in  his  voice,  "  would  you 
mind  putting  this  damned  thing  in  your  pocket  — 
I  —  I  —  find  it  tempts  me." 

Yes,  his  little  daughter  was  a  shield ;  he  held  her 
slim  body  between  himself  and  despair ;  he  told  her 
this  again  and  again,  as  he  sat  with  bowed  head  and 
suffusing  eyes  in  the  shadow  of  an  irrevocable  hap- 
piness. And  she  in  whom  there  stirred,  mysteri- 
ously, dimly,  the  tenderness  of  the  sublime  love  that 
had  called  her  into  being  —  she,  even  while  she 
mingled  her  tears  with  his,  felt  within  herself  the 
welling  of  an  exquisite  joy.  To  love,  to  solace, 
to  protect,  here  again  instincts  were  prematurely 
awakened;  here  again  her  little  feet  departed  from 
the  commonplace  to  carry  her  far  afield. 

In  time,  as  weeks  and  months  rolled  on,  the 
blow,  so  unendurable  at  first,  so  crushing  and  terri- 
ble, softened,  as  such  things  will,  and  a  busy  world 
again  engrossed  a  busy  man.  But  the  intimacy 
between  father  and  daughter  remained,  and  con- 


6  INFATUATION 

tinued  unimpaired.  Indeed,  it  grew  even  closer,  for 
now  laughter  came  into  it,  and  gay  bubbling  little 
confidences,  and  a  delightful  hour  before  bedtime, 
full  of  eagerness  and  zest.  Mr.  Ladd,  cigar  in 
mouth,  and  his  keen  handsome  face  as  deferential 
as  any  courtier's,  listened  to  the  interminable  do- 
ings of  Satty  and  Nelly  and  Jessie,  with  an  enjoy- 
ment that  never  seemed  to  tire. 

He,  too,  had  his  budget  of  the  day,  which,  often 
begun  whimsically,  not  seldom  ended  in  a  serious 
exposition  of  his  difficulties  and  problems.  It 
amused  him  to  state  such  complexities  in  simple 
language;  to  bring  them  down,  by  some  homely 
metaphor,  to  the  comprehension  of  this  adorable 
little  coquette,  who  tried  with  so  many  childish  arts 
to  dazzle  and  ensnare  him.  Even  at  thirteen  she 
was  learning  the  value  of  drawing  out  a  man  about 
himself;  she  was  quite  willing  to  understand  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Law,  and  become  pink  and 
indignant  over  a  new  classification  of  "  Coal  at  the 
pit's  mouth  " —  if  it  meant  her  father  would  hold 
her  a  little  tighter,  and  give  her  one  of  those  sudden 
glances  of  approval. 

Such  intercourse  with  a  shrewd,  strong,  brilliant 
mind  —  to  a  child  naturally  precocious  and  adaptive 


INFATUATION  7 

—  could  not  fail  to  have  far-reaching  consequences 
on  her  development.  She  caught  something  of  her 
father's  independence ;  of  his  lofty  and  yet  indulgent 
outlook  on  a  universe  made  up  so  largely  of  fools 
and  knaves;  learned  the  greatest  and  rarest  of  all 
imaginative  processes  —  to  put  oneself  in  the  other 
fellow's  shoes.  When  Joe  Howard  turned  traitor 
at  the  state  legislature,  and  sold  out  the  K.  B.  and 
O.  on  the  new  mileage  bill,  her  wrath  at  his  duplic- 
ity rose  to  fever.  "  Well,  there's  his  side  to  it," 
said  Mr.  Ladd,  with  unexpected  serenity.  "  He 
hasn't  a  cent;  he's  mortgaged  up  to  the  ears;  and 
has  a  sick  daughter  dying  of  consumption.  He's  a 
well-meaning  man,  and  I  suppose  would  be  honest 
if  he  could.  But  if  I  were  in  his  place,  and  your 
life  was  at  stake,  and  the  doctor  ordered  you  to  some 
ten-dollar-a-minute  place  in  Colorado  or  somewhere, 
I  guess  I'd  sell  out  the  K.  B.  and  O.  too ! " 

And  for  that  he  got  a  hug  that  nearly  choked 
him. 

"  Money  and  love,  my  lamb,"  he  said  to  her  once, 
"  those  are  the  wheels  the  old  wagon  runs  on.  Miss 
Simpkins  will  fluff  you  up  with  a  whole  lot  of  fancy 
fixings  —  but  I  tell  you,  it  boils  right  down  to 
that." 


8 

"  Papa/'  she  asked  him  on  another  occasion, 
with  round  wondering  eyes,  "  if  it's  all  like  that, 
why  are  you  honorable  and  noble  and  splendid  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  answered,  smiling.  "  I  guess 
it's  pride  more  than  anything  else.  Theoretically 
the  man  with  the  fewest  scruples  gets  farthest  in  the 
race;  but  thank  the  Lord,  most  of  us  are  handi- 
capped with  some  good  qualities  that  stick  to  us 
like  poor  relations." 

"  But  Miss  Simpkins  says  that  anybody  who  is 
bad  gets  punished  for  it  sooner  or  later.  She  says 
that  was  why  her  brother-in-law's  house  burned 
down;  because  he  was  so  uncharitable." 

"  It  may  be  so  with  the  people  Miss  Simpkins  is 
acquainted  with,"  said  Mr.  Ladd,  "but  it  doesn't 
hold  in  the  railroad  business,  nor  anywhere  else 
that  I  have  seen,  and  I  can't  help  thinking  she's  a 
trifle  more  hopeful  than  the  traffic  can  bear !  " 

This  philosophy,  so  picturesquely  expressed,  so 
genial,  so  amiably  cynical,  was  not  perhaps  the  best 
training  for  an  unusually  impressionable  mind. 
Miss  Simpkins  learned  to  dread  Phyllis'  preface: 
"But  Papa  says — "  What  Papa  said  was  often 
a  bombshell  that  blew  shams  to  pieces ;  tore  down  the 
pretty  pink  scenery  of  conventional  illusions;  and 


INFATUATION  9 

drove  cobble-stones  through  the  gauze  that  separated 
Miss  Simpkins  and  her  kind  from  the  real  world 
beyond.  It  was  a  harsh  process,  and  bad  for  gauze. 

At  first,  not  knowing  how  else  to  maintain  a 
fairly  large  establishment,  Mr.  Ladd  had  sought 
the  services  of  a  "  managing  housekeeper."  But 
the  trouble  with  her  —  or  rather  with  them,  for  he 
had  a  succession  —  was  that  the  "  managing  "  was 
considerably  overdone.  They  were  discharged,  the 
one  after  the  other,  without  having  "  managed  "  to 
achieve  their  one  consuming  ambition,  which  was  to 
capture  the  rich  widower,  and  lead  him  to  the  altar. 
After  a  while,  growing  weary  of  being  hunted,  and 
altogether  at  his  wits'  end,  he  invited  his  unmar- 
ried sister,  Henrietta  Ladd,  to  take  the  foot  of  his 
table,  and  a  place  at  his  hearth. 

She  was  a  thin,  plain,  elderly  woman,  with  a 
very  low  voice  and  a  deceptive  appearance  of  meek- 
ness. The  casual  guest  at  Mr.  Ladd's  board  might 
have  taken  her  for  a  silent  saint,  who,  unwillingly 
sojourning  in  this  vale  of  tears,  was  waiting  with 
ladylike  impatience  for  a  heavenly  crown.  In  some 
ways  this  description  would  have  fitted  Aunt  Hen- 
rietta well  enough,  though  it  took  no  account  of  a 
perverse  and  interfering  nature  that  was  more  than 


io  INFATUATION 

trying  to  live  with.  The  silent  saint  attempted  to 
rule  her  brother  and  her  niece  with  a  rod  of  iron, 
and  so  far  succeeded  that  her  two  years  "  tenure  of 
the  gubernatorial  chair "  (as  Mr.  Ladd  bitterly 
called  it),  was  fraught  with  quarrels  and  unhappi- 
ness.  Her  tyranny,  like  all  tyrannies,  ended  in  a 
revolution.  Mr.  Ladd  brought  his  "  unmarried 
misery" — also  his  own  phrase  —  to  a  sharp  con- 
clusion, and  Henrietta  departed  with  a  large  check 
and  a  still  larger  ill-will. 

"  Phyllis,"  he  said,  "  I  guess  we'll  just  have  to 
rustle  along  by  our  poor  little  selves.  The  people 
who  take  charge  of  us  seem  to  take  charge  too  hard. 
They  mean  well,  but  why  should  they  stamp  on  us? 
—  Yes,  let's  try  it  ourselves." 

And  Phyllis,  not  quite  fifteen  years  old,  became 
the  acknowledged  mistress  of  the  big  house. 

In  her  demure  head  she  knew  that  to  fail  would 
be  to  incur  a  danger  that  was  almost  too  terrible  to 
contemplate.  Her  father  might  be  persuaded  into 
marrying  again,  and  the  thought  of  such  a  catas- 
trophe sobered  and  restrained  her.  She  was  on  her 
mettle,  and  was  determined  to  succeed.  She  had 
her  check-book,  her  desk,  her  receipted  bills.  She 
had  her  morning  interviews  with  the  cook;  sent 


INFATUATION  n 

Curtains  to  the  cleaners ;  rang  up  various  tradespeo- 
ple on  the  telephone;  gently  criticized  Mary's  win- 
dow-cleaning, and  George's  nails,  and  busied  herself 
with  these,  and  innumerable  other  little  cares, 
while  Miss  Simpkins  waited  in  the  study,  restlessly 
drumming  her  long,  lean  fingers  on  a  French  gram- 
mar. 

Of  course,  she  did  several  foolish,  impulsive 
things,  but  no  more  than  some  little  bride  might 
have  done  in  the  first  novelty  of  controlling  a  large 
household.  She  gave  a  tramp  one  of  her  father's 
best  suits  of  clothes;  she  was  prevailed  upon  by 
the  servants  to  buy  many  things  that  neither  they 
nor  anybody  else  could  possibly  need  —  including 
an  electrically  driven  knife-cleaner,  and  a  cook's 
table,  so  compact  and  ingenious,  that  it  would  have 
been  priceless  on  an  airship,  though  in  her  own 
spacious  kitchen  it  was  decidedly  out  of  place;  and 
it  took  her  several  months  to  discover  that  James 
was  apparently  feeding  five  elephants  instead  of 
five  horses. 

But  she  was  quick  to  learn  better;  and  with  the 
innate  capacity  she  inherited  from  her  father,  she 
soon  had  everything  running  on  oiled  wheels.  And 
all  this,  if  you  please,  at  fifteen,  with  quite  a  bit 


12  INFATUATION 

of  stocking  between  her  dress  and  her  trimly-shod 
feet. 

It  was  seldom  that  her  father  ever  ventured  into 
the  realm  of  criticism;  but  once  or  twice,  in  his 
smiling,  easy-going  way,  he  gently  pulled  her  up. 

"  I  don't  know  much  about  these  things,"  he  re- 
marked once,  "  but  don't  there  seem  to  be  a  lot  of 
new  dresses  in  this  family  ?  " 

"  One  can't  go  naked,  Papa." 

"  Admitting .  that,  my  dear,  which  with  people 
of  our  position  would  certainly  give  rise  to  com- 
ment —  couldn't  we  compromise  on  —  well  —  go- 
ing 7ta//-naked,  and  perhaps  show  a  more  Spartan 
spirit,  besides,  in  regard  to  our  hats  ?  " 

Phyllis'  eyes  filled  with  tears;  and  flushing  with 
shame,  she  pressed  her  hot  cheek  against  the  back 
of  the  chair  she  was  sitting  in,  and  felt  herself  the 
most  miserable,  disgraced,  unworthy  little  creature 
in  the  whole  world. 

Mr.  Ladd's  voice  deepened,  as  it  always  did  when 
he  was  moved. 

"  My  darling,"  he  said,  "  don't  feel  badly  about 
it,  because  it  is  only  a  trifle.  But  it  is  not  kind 
to  your  companions  to  dress  better  than  they  do, 
and  I  am  sure  you  do  not  wish  them  to  feel  envious 


INFATUATION  13 

or  resentful.  I  just  ask  you  to  bear  it  in  mind, 
that's  all,  and  be  somewhat  on  your  guard." 

"  I  will,  Papa." 

"  Now  come  and  kiss  your  daddy,  and  tell  him 
you're  not  cross  with  him  for  being  such  an  old 
fuss-cat." 

"  Y-y-ou  are  n-not  an  old  fu-u-uss-cat,  but  the 
dearest,  darlingest,  bestest — " 

"  Do  you  think  it's  right  to  bite  a  railroad  presi- 
dent's ear?" 

"  Yes,  if  you  love  him !  " 

"  Or  muss  up  the  only  hair  he  has,  which  isn't 
very  much  ?  " 

"  Yes,  if  it  helps  you  to  think." 

"  What's  that  —  thinking?  " 

"Yes,  Papa." 

"  It  worries  me,  dearest,  to  have  you  doing  any- 
thing as  serious  as  that." 

"  Papa,  it  is  serious.     Listen !  " 

"  I'm  listening," 

"  I've  a  wonderful  idea  —  I'm  going  to  give  a 
party ! " 

"  Splendid  —  hope  you'll  ask  me !  " 

"  And  I'm  going  to  invite  Satty  Morrison,  and 


T4  INFATUATION 

Julia  Grant,  and  Hetty  Van  Buren,  and  Maisie 
Smith,  and  the  two  Patterson  girls,  and  perhaps 
Alicia  Stewart  —  and  we  are  going  to  have  ice- 
cream, and  lady's-fingers,  and  chocolate-cake,  and 
Christmas  crackers,  if  I  can  buy  them  this  time  of 
year  —  and,  Papa,  it's  going  to  be  a  hat-party." 
"  Oh,  a  hat-party,  goodness  me,  what's  that  ?  " 
"  To  give  away  all  the  silly,  extravagant  hats 
I've  bought  —  though  I'll  have  to  get  two  new  ones 
to  make  them  go  round  —  but  you  won't  mind  that, 
will  you  ?  " 

"  No,  indeed  —  not  for  a  hat-party." 
And  next  day  the  invitations  were  out. 
This   scandalous   way  of  bringing  up   an   only 
daughter  caused  many  people  to  shake  their  heads. 
"  It'll  end  in  a  peck  of  trouble  for  Mr.  Ladd 
some  day,"  said  the  old  cats,  with  which  Carthage 
was  as  liberally  stocked  as   any  other  great   and 
flourishing  American  city.     "  Mark  my  words,  my 
dear,  no  good  can  come  of  bringing  up  a  girl  like 
a  wild  Indian,  and  he'll  have  nobody  to  blame  but 
himself  if  she  goes  headlong  to  the  bad." 


CHAPTER  II 

AT  twenty,  Phyllis  Ladd  was  one  of  the  pret- 
tiest girls  in  Carthage.  A  little  above 
medium  height,  slim,  dark,  and  glowing 
like  a  rose,  she  moved  with  that  charming  con- 
sciousness of  beauty  that  is  in  itself  almost  a  dis- 
tinction. The  French  and  Spanish  in  her  mother's 
southern  blood  showed  itself  in  her  slender  feet  and 
hands,  in  her  grace,  her  voice,  her  gentle,  gracious, 
and  engaging  manners.  One  could  not  long  talk 
to  her  without  realizing  that  behind  those  sparkling 
eyes  there  was  a  fine  and  highly-sensitive  nature, 
whimsical,  original  and  intrepid;  and  to  know  her 
well  was  to  perceive  that  she  was  one  of  those 
women  who  would  love  with  rare  intensity;  and 
whose  future,  for  good  or  evil,  for  happiness  or 
disaster,  was  irretrievably  dependent  on  the  heart. 
In  a  dim  sort  of  way  she  had  the  consciousness 
of  this  herself;  her  flirtations  went  no  further  than 
to  dance  with  the  same  partner  three  or  four  times 

15 


16  INFATUATION 

in  the  course  of  the  same  evening;  and  Carthage, 
which  gave  its  young  people  a  great  deal  of  inno- 
cent liberty  —  and  which'  its  young  people  took 
with  the  greediness  of  children  —  in  time  got  to 
consider  her,  in  spite  of  deceptive  appearances,  as 
being  cold,  proud,  and  ".exclusive."  Certainly  her 
exclusiveness  drew  the  line  at  being  kissed  by  bois- 
terous young  men,  and  though  their  company 
pleased  and  amused  her,  she  refused  to  single  out 
one  of  them  for  any  special  favor. 

"  They  are  all  such  idiots,  Papa,"  she  said  plain- 
tively. "  Aren't  there  any  real  men  anywhere  — 
real  men  that  a  girl  could  love  ?  " 

"  I'm  sure  I  don't  know,"  returned  Mr.  Ladd. 
"  I  haven't  come  across  one  I'd  trust  a  yellow  dog 
to,  let  alone  my  daughter.  But,  frankly,  I'm  preju- 
diced on  the  young-man  question  —  anybody  would 
be  who  has  to  run  a  railroad  with  them !  " 

"  Papa,"  she  cried,  throwing  her  arms  around 
his  neck,  and  her  mood  changing  to  one  of  her  gay- 
est phantasies,  "  let's  go  away  together,  you  and  I, 
and  see  if  we  can't  find  him.  The  Quest  of  the 
Golden  Young  Man!  There  must  be  one  some- 
where, and  we'll  look  for  him  in  every  hidy-hole 
in  the  world  —  in  street-cars  and  banks,  and  ice- 


INFATUATION  17 

cream  places,  and  cellars,  and  factories,  and  moun- 
tains, and  ships  —  just  you  and  me,  with  a  little 
steamer-trunk  —  and  we'll  run  across  him  in  the 
unlikeliest  spot  —  and  he  may  be  a  bandit  in  a  cave, 
or  a  wild,  roystering  cow-boy  shooting  up  one  of 
those  awful  little  western  towns  —  but  we'll  know 
right  off  that  he's  our  Golden  Young  Man  —  and 
we'll  take  him,  and  put  him  in  a  crate,  and  bring 
him  home  in  the  baggage-car,  and  poke  him  with  a 
long  sharp  stick  till  he's  willing  to  marry  me ! " 

The  Quest  of  the  Golden  Young  Man!  It  be- 
gan sooner  than  Phyllis  could  ever  have  believed 
possible,  and  with  a  companion  she  would  have 
been  the  last  to  dream  of.  Mr.  Ladd  had  a  mar- 
ried sister  in  Washington,  the  wife  of  a  highly- 
placed  treasury  official.  Mrs.  Sam  Fensham  was 
a  very  fashionable,  energetic,  pushing  woman, 
wholly  absorbed  in  the  task  of  pulling  competitors 
off  the  social  ladder,  and  planting  her  own  faultless 
French  shoes  on  the  empty  rung.  Brother  and  sis- 
ter had  about  as  much  in  common  as  you  could 
spread  on  a  dime;  but  Robert  Ladd  had  all  the 
American's  admiration  of  ability,  no  matter  in  what 
direction  it  was  exercised;  and  Sally  Fensham 


i8  INFATUATION 

dearly  loved  her  fraternal  relationship  to  the  K.  B. 
and  O. 

This  social  strategist  had  volunteered  one  of  her 
rare  visits  to  Carthage  under  the  stress  of  bad 
financial  weather.  Brother  Bob,  who  regularly 
brightened  her  Christmas  with  a  check  in  four  fig- 
ures, had  some  peculiarities  of  purse  and  heart  that 
Mrs.  Fensham  was  well  acquainted  with.  You 
might  dash  him  off  a  letter,  slashed  with  underlin- 
ing, and  piteous  in  the  extremity  of  its  cri  de  cceur, 
and  get  nothing  in  reply  but  two  pages  of  humor- 
ous typewriting,  wanting  to  know  why  two  people, 
without  children,  could  not  manage  to  scrape  along 
in  Washington  on  sixteen  thousand  dollars  a  year? 

But  Brother  Bob,  face  to  face,  was  a  very  differ- 
ent person.  If  you  sat  on  the  arm  of  his  chair, 
and  talked  of  pa  and  ma  and  the  old  days,  and  per- 
haps cried  a  little,  not  altogether  insincerely,  over 
faces  and  things  long  since  vanished  —  if,  indeed, 
under  the  spell  of  that  grave,  kindly  brother,  you 
somehow  shed  your  cares  into  an  infinite  tenderness, 
and  forgot  everything  save  that  you  loved  him  best 
of  any  one  on  earth  —  if  —  but  it  always  happened 
—  you  did  not  need  to  give  another  thought,  to 
what,  after  all,  was  the  real  object  of  your  visit. 


INFATUATION  19 

In  a  day  or  two,  Brother  Bob  would  say ;  "  Sally, 
just  how  many  dollars  would  make  you  feel  eighteen 
again,  and  as  though  you  were  waiting  for  Elmer 
Boyd  to  take  you  out  sleighing  ?  " 

You  could  answer  thirty-seven  hundred,  and  get 
it  as  readily  as  a  postage  stamp ;  and  with  it  a  look 
of  such  honest  affection,  such  a  glisten  in  those 
fine  eyes,  that  your  words  of  thanks  stammered  a 
little  on  your  tongue. 

Well,  here  was  Aunt  Sally  again  —  arm-chair  — 
pa  and  ma  —  the  old  days  —  check  —  and  in  her 
restless,  scheming  eyes  the  birth  of  a  vague  idea 
that  grew  ever  more  and  more  alluring, —  nothing 
else  than  to  take  this  very  pretty  niece  of  hers  back 
to  Washington,  and  enhance  the  Fensham  position 
by  a  splendid  marriage.  She  had  a  vision  of  balls 
and  dinner-parties,  all  paid  for  by  her  millionaire 
brother ;  a  showy  French  limousine ;  unlimited  boxes 
at  the  theater  and  opera ;  and  a  powerful  nephew-to- 
be,  with  a  name  to  hoist  the  portcullis  of  many  a 
proud  social  stronghold,  and  allow  the  wife  of  a 
highly-placed  treasury  official  to  squeeze  in.  The 
Motts,  the  Glendennings,  the  Pastors,  the  Van 
Schaicks  —  the  Port  Arthurs  of  Washington  so- 
ciety—  Sarah  Fensham  would  assail  all  of  them, 


20  INFATUATION 

holding  before  her  one  of  their  cherished  sons,  and 
defying  them  to  shoot.  A  fascinating  prospect  in- 
deed, and  one  not  beyond  realization,  considering 
the  girl's  beauty,  and  her  father's  money. 

On  the  subject  being  broached  to  Brother  Bob, 
it  was  met  with  a  hostility  only  comparable  to  a 
Polar  bear  being  robbed  of  its  cub.  The  whole- 
marriage-market  business  nauseated  him,  he  de- 
clared; his  daughter  should  never  be  set  up  on  the 
counter  to  be  priced  and  pawed  over;  not  only 
would  her  natural  refinement  revolt  at  it,  but  he 
inconsistently  and  with  much  warmth  announced 
that  Carthage  was  full  of  splendid  young  men,  the 
sons  of  his  old  associates,  amongst  whom  Phyllis 
should  find  her  husband  when  the  time  came,  and  a 
fellow  worth  fifty  of  those  Washington  dudes  and 
dough-heads. 

"  It's  all  very  well  for  you  to  talk,"  said  Sally 
coldly,  "  but  I  should  say  it  was  more  for  Phyllis 
to  decide  than  for  you." 

"  She  wouldn't  hear  of  such  a  thing,"  protested 
Mr.  Ladd  heatedly.  "  She  is  a  quiet,  home-loving 
girl,  and  wouldn't  put  herself  in  a  show-window 
for  anything  on  earth." 

"  My  house  is  not  a  show-window ;  and  what  is 


INFATUATION  21 

there  immodest  or  wrong  in  her  meeting  the  nicest 
men  in  America?  " 

"  Besides,  she  wouldn't  care  to  leave  me." 
Angry  as  she  was,  there  was  something  in  this 
remark  that  suddenly  touched  Sally  Fensham.  She 
was  hard  and  aggressive,  but  her  heart  was  not 
altc0ether  withered,  and  under  extraordinary  cir- 
cumstances could  even  be  moved. 

"  My  poor  Bob,"  she  said,  holding  the  lapels  of 
his  coat,  and  looking  up  at  him ;  "  do  you  not  know 
that  Phyllis  may  meet  a  man  to-day  at  dinner,  and 
to-morrow  at  tea,  and  the  day  after  drive  with  him 
for  an  hour  in  the  Park  —  and  then  what's  father 
or  mother  or  anything  in  the  world  if  she  loves 
him?  Bob,  dear,  just  get  it  out  of  your  head  that 
you  are  going  to  keep  Phyllis.  When  the  right 
man  comes  you  will  no  more  count  to  her  than  — 
than  that  chair !  —  Oh,  yes,  of  course,  every  girl 
loves  her  father  in  a  way  —  but  you  have  only 
been  keeping  her  heart  warm  —  and  once  it's  set 
on  fire  —  good-by!  And,  Bob,  dear,  listen,  is  it 
not  common  sense  to  let  her  see  the  right  kind  of 
young  men;  to  sift  them  and  weigh  them  a  bit? 
Is  it  a  marriage-market  to  admit  none  but  those 
who  are  presentable  ancj  well-bred  and  come  of 


22  INFATUATION 

nice  people?  Is  that  a  show-window?  No,  it's 
giving  a  girl  a  chance  to  choose  —  the  chance  I 
wish  to  Heaven  I'd  had.  We  simply  try  to  get 
the  nicest  man  there  is,  and  you  are  more  apt  to 
get  a  prize  from  a  hundred  than  from  six !  " 

"  That  applies  just  as  much  to  Carthage  as  to 
Washington." 

"  Bob,  you  don't  know  what  you've  been  risking. 
Your  whole  way  of  living  is  utterly  crazy.  Why, 
anybody  —  anybody  could  come  here,  and  make 
love  to  her,  and  carry  her  off  under  your  nose  — 
some  awful  commercial  traveler  or  cheap  pianist 
with  frowzy  hair  —  Oh,  Bob,  girls  are  such  fools 
—  such  crazy,  crazy  fools !  " 

"  Phyllis  isn't." 

"Was  I?" 

"  No,  I  don't  think  you  were." 

"But  didn't  I  marry  Sam  Fensham?" 

"  I  don't  see  that  that  — " 

Sally  laughed;  and  it  was  not  a  pleasant  laugh 
to  hear  in  its  self -revelation.  Sam  was  notoriously 
more  successful  as  a  treasury  official  than  as  a 
husband. 

"  Bob,  she  has  to  go  to  Washington  with  me, 


INFATUATION  23 

and  you  must  put  your  hand  in  your  pocket,  and  do 
things  handsomely." 

"Against  her  will?" 

Again  Sally  laughed,  more  harshly  and  cynically 
than  before. 

"Just  you  ask  her,"  she  said. 

That  night  Mr.  Ladd  did  so,  and  saw  with  a  sink- 
ing heart  the  electrifying  effect  it  had  on  her. 

Go!  Why,  she'd  jump  out  of  her  shoes  to  go, 
and  wasn't  daddy  the  dearest,  darlingest,  adorablest 
person  in  the  world  to  propose  it!  And  Aunt  Sal- 
ly's kindness  —  wasn't  it  wonderful!  She  would 
meet  senators  and  ambassadors,  and  dance  in  the 
White  House  with  lovely  barons  and  counts,  and 
try  out  her  French  on  a  real  Frenchman  and  see  if 
he  could  understand  it !  —  A  winter  in  Washington ! 
What  could  be  more  exciting,  more  delirious! 

Mr.  Ladd  affected  to  share  her  delight,  and 
manfully  concealed  his  true  feelings,  which  were 
altogether  bitter  and  sad.  But  he  was  a  brave  old 
fellow,  and  knew  how  to  take  his  disappointments 
smilingly.  Besides,  what  claim  had  he  to  resist  the 
inevitable?  What  right?  What  justification? 


24  INFATUATION 

He  would  have  bitten  his  tongue  out  before  he 
would  have  reproached  her,  or  marred,  by  the  slight- 
est word,  her  overflowing  and  girlish  exuberance. 
It  was  only  as  they  kissed  each  other  good  night  that 
the  pent-up  appeal  came. 

"  Don't  forget  your  old  dad  in  the  shuffle,"  he 
said.  "  It's  —  it's  going  to  be  very  hard  for  him 
without  you,  Phyllis." 

Her  instant  contrition  was  very  sweet  to  him, 
very  comforting  and  dear.  In  fact,  he  had  to  strug- 
gle pretty  desperately  to  allay  the  storm  of  tender- 
ness he  evoked. —  No,  no,  he  wanted  her  to  go  to 
Washington.  It  was  the  right  thing  to  do  —  the 
only  thing  to  do.  A  girl  ought  to  see  something 
of  the  big  world  before  she  married  and  settled 
down. —  Oh,  every  girl  said  that  to  herself,  but 
you  couldn't  get  away  from  the  fact  that  they  were 
made  for  men,  and  men  for  them,  and  a  father 
just  held  the  fort  till  the  Golden  Young  Man  ar- 
rived. 

How  they  laughed,  with  tears  in  their  eyes! 
How  infinitely  precious  was  the  love  that  bound 
them  together!  Dad  was  never  to  be  lost  in  the 
shuffle  —  never,  never ;  and  he  was  to  write  every 
day,  and  she  was  to  write ;  and  if  it  were  a  hundred 


INFATUATION  25 

Washingtons  she'd  come  straight  back  to  him  if  he 
were  lonely,  for  to  her  there  was  only  one  real 
Golden  Young  Man,  and  that  was  her  darling, 
darling  father. 

Yet  as  Mr.  Ladd  shut  the  study  door,  and  re- 
turned to  his  seat  beside  the  lamp,  he  knew  in  spite 
of  himself  that  he  had  said  good-by.  His  guard- 
ianship was  over;  near,  now,  was  that  unknown 
man,  that  unknown  rival,  for  whose  pleasure  he  had 
lavished  twenty  years  of  incessant  care  and  devo- 
tion. Though  Ladd  was  hardly  a  believer,  the 
wish  came  out  with  the  fervency  of  a  prayer :  "  Oh, 
my  God,  let  him  be  worthy  of  her  1 " 


CHAPTER  III 

SHE  did  write  every  day;  sometimes  the  mer- 
est snippets,  sometimes  long,  graphic  letters, 
full  of  the  new  life  and  the  new  people. 
Her  debut  had  been  an  immense  success.  Eddie 
Phelps,  a  horrid,  tallowy,  patronizing  person,  but 
socially  a  dictator,  had  put  the  stamp  of  his  ap- 
proval on  her,  and  she  had  managed  to  receive  it 
and  not  burst  —  which,  if  Papa  only  knew  it,  was 
a  very  remarkable  feat.  But,  anyway,  she  had 
been  hall-marked  "  sterling,"  and  was  enjoying  her- 
self furiously.  And  the  young  men  were  so  dif- 
ferent from  Carthage,  so  much  more  polished  and 
elegant  —  and  pertinacious.  Washington  young 
men  simply  didn't  know  what  "  No  "  meant,  and 
it  was  like  shoveling  snow  to  get  rid  of  them.  But 
Aunt  Sarah  was  a  regular  White  Wings,  and  the 
poor,  the  detrimental,  and  the  fast  —  every  one,  in 
fact,  who  wasn't  a  first-class  parti  with  references 

26 


INFATUATION  27 

from  his  last  place  —  got  carted  away  before  he 
knew  what  had  struck  him. 

And  Aunt  Sally !  "  Why,  Papa,  we  didn't  know 
her  at  all.  She  is  as  young  as  I  am,  and  twice  as 
eager,  and  dances  her  stockings  through  every  other 
night.  Washington  is  divided  between  the  people 
who  hate  her,  and  the  people  who  love  her,  and 
they  put  a  tremendous  zip  into  either  end  of  it. 
What  she  really  wants  is  to  marry  me  at  the  cold 
end,  and  strengthen  her  position  as  she  calls  it; 
and  though  I  say  it,  who  shouldn't,  the  cold-end 
young  men  are  coming  in  fast.  When  one  pro- 
poses to  me,  she  calls  it  a  scalp,  and  looks,  oh,  so 
pleased!  But  if  I  see  any  of  them  working  up  to 
that  I  try  to  stop  him  in  time,  though  it's  awfully 
exciting  just  the  same.  That's  why  I've  only  three 
scalps  to  report  instead  of  about  eight.  Oh,  Papa, 
what  fun  it  is !  " 

In  time  her  letters  began  to  change,  and  there 
were  little  signs  of  disillusionment.  One  was  al- 
most a  tract  on  worldliness,  in  which  she  talked 
about  Vanity  Fair,  and  dancing  on  coffins,  and  the 
inner  hunger  of  the  soul.  There  were  also  increas- 
ing references  to  J.  Whitlock  Pastor,  always  cou- 
pled with  "  ideals."  J.  Whitlock  Pastor  was  quite 


28  INFATUATION 

a  remarkable  young  man  of  thirty,  with  "  a  beau- 
tiful austerity,"  and  "  fine  mind."  His  people  were 
immensely  wealthy,  and  immensely  fashionable  — 
even  in  Carthage  there  was  a  sacredness  about  the 
name  of  Pastor  —  and  Phyllis  said  there  was 
something  splendid  in  his  taking  up  forestry  as  a 
life  work,  and  devoting  himself  to  it,  heart  and  soul, 
when  he  had  been  born —  not  with  a  silver  spoon 
—  but  with  a  bird's-egg  diamond  in  his  mouth. 

If  there  was  anything  to  be  said  against  J.  Whit- 
lock  Pastor,  it  was  that  he  was  almost  too  good  to 
be  true.  He  wanted  to  leave  the  world  better  for 
his  having  been,  and  all  that  —  and  seemed  to  have 
what  might  be  called  an  excruciating  sense  of  duty. 
"  A  very  quiet  and  rather  a  sad  man,"  wrote  Phyl- 
lis, "  whom  one  might  easily  mistake  for  a  muff  if 
one  hadn't  seen  him  on  horseback.  He  rides  su- 
perbly, and  I  never  saw  a  ring-master  in  a  circus 
who  could  come  anywhere  near  him." 

All  this  worked  up  to  a  telegram  that  reached 
Mr.  Ladd  a  few  weeks  later :  "  I  accepted  him  last 
night,  and,  Papa,  please  come  on  quick  and  bless 
us." 

Mr.  Ladd  hastened  to  Washington  as  speedily  as 
his  affairs  would  allow,  which  was  five  days  later, 


INFATUATION  29 

and  arrived  just  in  time  to  dress  for  the  introduc- 
tory dinner  at  Mrs.  Pastor's  —  J.  Whitlock's 
mother's.  He  tried  to  imagine  he  was  delighted, 
and  caught  his  daughter  in  his  arms  with  the  en- 
thusiasm of  a  stage  parent.  But  Phyllis  was  so 
pale,  so  calm,  so  undemonstrative  that  he  hardly 
knew  what  to  make  of  her.  He  put  her  cool  indif- 
ference down  to  Washington  training,  but  still  it 
puzzled  and  troubled  him.  It  was  so  unlike  a  girl 
who  had  met  her  fate  —  so  unlike  another  pair  of 
lovers  that  had  been  so  much  in  his  head  that  day  — 
Genivieve  de  Levancour,  and  a  certain  Bob  Ladd. 
The  contrast  gave  him  a  certain  sense  of  forebod- 
ing. 

In  the  carriage  she  was  very  silent,  and  nestled 
against  him  like  a  tired  child.  He  repeated  his 
congratulations;  he  strove  again  to  be  delighted; 
joked,  not  without  effort,  about  the  exalted  position 
of  the  Pastors,  and  what  a  come-down  it  was  for 
them  to  marry  such  poor  white  trash  as  the  Ladds. 
Then  it  occurred  to  him  that  perhaps  this  jarred 
upon  her.  "  Forgive  me,  Phyllis,"  he  said  humbly. 
"I  —  I  hardly  know  what  I  am  saying.  I  —  I 
guess  I'm  trying  to  hide  what  this  recalls  to  me  — 
what  this  means  to  me." 


3o  INFATUATION 

She  pressed  his  hand,  and  snuggled  it  against 
her  cheek,  but  still  shrouded  herself  in  reserve. 

"  Papa,"  she  said  suddenly,  "  you'd  stick  to  me 
through  thick  and  thin,  wouldn't  you?  Whatever 
I  did  —  however  foolish  or  silly  I  might  be,  you'd 
always  love  me,  wouldn't  you  ?  " 

"  By  God,  yes,"  he  answered,  "  though  why  on 
earth  you  should  ask — " 

"Only  to  make  sure,"  she  exclaimed,  brighten- 
ing. "Just  to  be  certain  that  my  old-dog  father 
hadn't  changed.  Now  say  bow-wow,  just  to  show 
that  you  haven't !  " 

Mr.  Ladd,  very  much  mystified,  and  not  at  all 
comfortable  in  his  mind,  obediently  bow-wowed. 
It  set  Phyllis  off  in  a  peal  of  laughter,  and  it  was 
with  apparent  hilarity  that  both  descended  at  the 
Pastor's  front  door. 

Whitlock's  mother  received  them  in  the  draw- 
ing-room. She  was  a  stately,  gray-haired  woman, 
with  a  subdued  voice,  and  a  graciousness  that  was 
almost  oppressive.  Her  guests  had  hardly  been 
seated,  when  J.  Whitlock  himself  appeared,  and  ex- 
cused himself,  with  faultless  and  somewhat  unneces- 
sary courtesy,  for  not  having  been  found  awaiting 
their  arrival.  Mr.  Ladd  saw  before  him  a  tall, 


INFATUATION  31 

thin  young  man,  of  a  polished  and  somewhat  cold 
exterior,  with  a  dryness  of  expression  that  was  posi- 
tively parching.  Like  one  of  those  priceless  enam- 
els of  the  Orient,  one  felt  that  J.  Whitlock  Pastor 
had  been  roasted  and  glazed,  roasted  and  glazed, 
roasted  and  glazed  until  the  substance  beneath 
had  become  but  a  matter  of  conjecture.  The  en- 
amel was  magnificent  —  but  where  was  the  man  ? 
Mr.  Ladd,  with  a  choking  sense  of  disappointment, 
began  to  suspect  there  was  none. 

J.  Whitlock  opened  the  proceedings  much  as  the 
czar  might  have  opened  a  Duma.  He  recited  a 
neat,  dry,  commonplace  little  address  of  welcome, 
and  sounded  a  key-note  of  constraint  and  formality 
that  was  rigorously  maintained  throughout  the 
evening.  The  address  was  seconded  by  the  em- 
press-dowager, and  then  it  was  Mr.  Ladd's  turn 
to  swear  loyalty  to  the  throne,  and  burst  into 
cheers.  He  did  so  as  well  as  he  could,  but  it  was  a 
poor,  lame  attempt;  and  when,  almost  in  despair, 
he  went  up  to  J.  Whitlock,  and  impulsively  wrung 
the  Imperial  hand,  the  very  atmosphere  seemed  to 
shiver  at  the  sacrilege. 

A  frigid  dinner  followed  in  a  dining-room  of 
overpowering  magnificence.  There  .was  a  high- 


32  INFATUATION 

class  conversation  to  match,  interrupted  from  time 
to  time  by  a  small  British  army  —  small  in  num- 
ber—  but  prodigal  of  inches,  and  calves,  and 
chest-measure  —  who  stealthily  pounced  on  plates, 
obtruded  thumbs,  and  stopped  breathing  when  they 
served  you.  Mr.  Ladd,  smarting  with  an  inexplica- 
ble resentment,  compounded  of  jealousy,  scorn 
and  chagrin,  writhed  in  his  chair,  and  tugged  at  his 
mustache,  and  gazed  from  his  daughter  to  his 
prospective  son-in-law  with  melancholy  wonder. 

Yet  Phyllis  seemed  to  be  perfectly  contented,  sit- 
ting there  so  demure,  elegant  and  self-possessed  at 
the  terrible  board  of  the  Romanoffs.  Mr.  Ladd 
could  have  wished  that  she  had  shown  a  little  more 
assertion,  a  little  more  —  well,  he  hardly  knew  what 
—  but  something  to  offset  the  unconscious  arrogance 
of  these  people,  and  to  show  them  that  a  Ladd  was 
as  good  as  they  were,  if  not  a  darned  sight  better ! 
But  Phyllis,  if  anything,  was  too  much  the  other 
way.  There  was  a  humility  in  her  sweetness,  her 
deference,  her  touching  desire  to  please.  To  her 
father  she  seemed  to  have  accepted  too  readily,  too 
gratefully,  her  beggar-maid  position  at  that  kingly 
table. 

But  as  he  watched  her  some  doubts  assailed  him, 


INFATUATION  33 

He  remembered  how  singular  she  had  been  in  the 
carriage,  how  over-wrought,  and  unlike  her  usual 
self.  Her  eyes,  fixed  so  constantly  on  her  in- 
tended's, had  in  them  more  pleading  than  love; 
more  a  curious,  studying,  seeking  look,  as  though 
she,  too,  was  trying  to  penetrate  the  enamel,  and 
see  beneath.  But  her  voice  softened  as  she  spoke 
to  him;  she  smiled  and  colored  at  his  allusions  to 
"  us "  and  "  our " ;  she  shyly  referred  to  their 
projected  honeymoon  in  the  western  forests,  and 
spoke  rapturously  of  galloping  through  the  glades 
at  the  head  of  twenty  rangers,  all  sunburned  and 
jingling  and  armed  to  the  teeth. 

What  was  an  old  fellow  to  make  of  it,  anyway? 
One  could  bring  up  a  girl  from  a  baby,  and  still 
not  know  her.  Mr.  Ladd  was  very  much  per- 
plexed. 

After  dinner,  the  ladies  left  the  two  men  at  their 
coffee,  and  retired.  The  British  Army  set  out 
liqueurs,  cigars,  a  spirit-lighter,  and  then  noiselessly 
vanished.  Now  that  they  were  alone  together,  Mr. 
Ladd  hoped  that  J.  Whitlock  would  unbend ;  hoped 
that  the  long-deferred  process  of  making  his  ac- 
quaintance would  begin.  He  might  not  be  an  ideal 
son-in-law,  but  it  was  horse-sense  to  make  the  best 


34  INFATUATION 

of  him.  You  had  to  take  the  son-in-law  God  gave 
you.  Besides,  the  man  that  Phyllis  loved  was 
bound  to  have  a  fine  nature;  and  if  he  could  unveil 
it  to  her,  he  surely  could  unveil  it  to  her  father. 
So,  between  sips  of  Benedictine,  and  through  the 
haze  of  a  good  cigar,  Mr.  Ladd  essayed  the  task. 

He  commenced  by  describing  his  own  early  man- 
hood ;  his  courtship  of  Phyllis'  mother ;  his  marriage 
in  face  of  a  thousand  difficulties.  Again  and  again 
he  faltered ;  it  was  all  so  sacred ;  his  eyes  were  often 
moist  —  but  he  persevered;  he  had  to  win  this 
young  man,  and  how  better  than  by  appealing  to 
the  sentiment  that  unites  all  true  lovers?  The  el- 
derly railroad  president  could  not  bear  utterly  to  be 
left  out  of  these  two  young  lives.  His  daughter 
was  lost  to  him ;  at  best  a  husband  leaves  little  for  a 
father;  this  stranger  had  it  now  in  his  power  to 
make  that  little  almost  nothing.  Small  wonder, 
then,  that  Mr.  Ladd  struggled  for  his  shred  of  hap- 
piness; put  pride  on  one  side;  exerted  every  faculty 
he  possessed  to  attract  the  friendship  of  Phyllis' 
master.  For  a  husband  is  a  master;  a  woman  is 
the  slave  of  the  man  she  loves ;  forty  centuries  have 
changed  nothing  but  the  words,  and  the  size  and 
metal  of  the  ring. 


INFATUATION  -35 

It  used  to  be.  of  iron,  and  was  worn  on  the  neck. 

Mr.  Ladd's  gaze,  that  had  been  fixed  in  vacancy, 
of  a  sudden  fell  full  on  J.  Whitlock's  face.  What 
he  saw  was  an  expression  so  cold,  so  delicately  su- 
percilious, so  patiently  polite,  that  he  stopped  as 
suddenly  as  though  he  had  been  struck  by  lightning. 
Was  it  for  this,  then,  that  he  had  opened  this  holy 
of  holies,  into  which  no  human  being  before  had 
ever  looked, —  this  inmost  recess  of  his  soul,  now 
profaned,  it  seemed  to  him,  for  ever  ?  For  a  second 
his  shame  transcended  even  his  disappointment.  He 
had  dishonored  the  dead,  besides  dishonoring  him- 
self. He  had  allowed  this  tall,  thin,  bored  creature 
to  hear  things  too  dear,  too  intimate,  to  be  spoken 
even  to  Phyllis.  My  God,  what  an  old  fool  he 
had  been,  what  an  ass! 

"  Had  we  not  better  join  the  ladies  ?  "  inquired 
J.  Whitlock,  after  the  pause  had  lasted  long  enough 
to  redeem  the  proposal  from  any  appearance  of  rude- 
ness. 

"  I  suppose  we  had,"  returned  Mr.  Ladd,  in  a 
tone  as  dry  as  his  host's;  and  together  they  both 
sought  the  drawing-room. 

A  long,  long  hour  followed  before,  in  decency, 
a  very  flustered,  embittered,  and  upset  middle-aged 


36  INFATUATION 

gentleman  could  dare  to  say  his  adieux.  From  the 
frescoed  ceiling  the  painted  angels  must  certainly 
have  wept  at  the  sight  beneath;  or,  if  they  did  not 
weep,  they  surely  yawned.  The  labored  conversa- 
tion, the  make-believe  cordiality,  the  awful  gap 
when  a  topic  fell  to  rise  no  more,  certainly  made  it 
an  evening  that  never  could  be  forgotten.  Blessed 
Briton  who  said :  "  Mr.  Ladd's  kerridge ! " 
Twice  blessed  Briton  who  handed  them  into  it,  and 
uttered  the  magic  word  "  'Ome !  " 

"Did  you  like  him,  Papa?" 

"A  delightful  young  man,  Phyllis,  perfectly  de- 
lightful." 

"And  his  mother?" 

"  Charming,   charming !  " 

"  I  never  saw  either  one  of  them  unbend  as  they 
did  to  you." 

"  It  was  a  great  compliment.     I  appreciate  it." 

"  You  don't  think  I  could  have  done  better?  " 

"  No,  indeed.     Not  if  you  love  him." 

"Papa?" 

"Yes,  dearest?" 

"  Papa,  I've  done  something  awful.  Shut  your 
eyes,  and  I'll  try  to  tell  you," 


INFATUATION  37 

"  Phyllis,  what  do  you  —  ?  " 

"  Are  they  shut  —  tight  —  tight?  " 

"  Yes,  but  I  don't  — " 

"  Now,  don't  talk,  Papa,  but  listen  like  a  good 
little  railroad  president,  and  I'll  tell  you  what  I 
think  of  J.  Whitlock  Pastor,  and  that  is  he's  un- 
bearable! No,  no,  I'm  not  joking  —  I  mean  it,  I 
mean  it!  He's  unbearable,  and  his  mother's 
unbearable,  and  the  forty  yards  around  them  is 
unbearable,  and  I  wouldn't  marry  him  for  anything 
under  the  sun,  no,  not  if  he  was  the  only  man  in  the 
world  except  the  clergyman  who  would  do  it;  and 
Papa,  I'm  so  mortified  and  ashamed  and  miserable 
that  I  don't  know  what  to  do.  Didn't  you  notice 
me  to-night,  and  how  shy  and  crushed  I  was,  sitting 
there  like  a  little  Judas,  and  feeling,  oh,  horribly 
wicked  and  treacherous?  It  was  all  I  could  do  not 
to  scream  out  that  I  hated  him,  just  as  loud  as  I 
could :  I  hate  you !  I  hate  you !  I  hate  you !  — 
I  was  trying  to  tell  you  that  when  we  started,  but  I 
didn't  have  the  courage.  I  wanted  you  to  see  him 
for  yourself;  to  realize  how  unendurable  he  is; 
I  —  I  —  wanted  you  not  to  blame  me  too  much, 
Papa." 

To  Mr.  Ladd  it  was  like  a  reprieve  at  the  gallows' 


38  INFATUATION 

foot.  Blame  her?  Why,  elation  ran  to  his  head 
like  wine;  he  caught  her  in  his  arms  and  hugged 
her;  had  he  saved  her  from  drowning  he  could  not 
have  been  more  passionately  thankful.  His  opin- 
ion of  the  young  man  came  out  in  a  torrent  of 
unvarnished  Anglo-Saxon.  To  every  epithet  he  ap- 
plied to  him,  Phyllis  added  a  worse.  In  their  wild 
humor,  and  bubbling  over  with  a  laughter  that 
verged  on  the  hysterical,  they  vied  with  each  other 
in  tearing  J.  Whitlock  to  pieces. 

"  But,  Phyllis,  Phyllis,  how  did  you  ever  come 
to  do  it?" 

"  I  don't  know,  Papa." 

"  But  you  must  have  liked  him  ?  " 

"I  thought  I  did." 

"  Was  it  the  attraction  of  his  position  —  his  name 
—  and  all  that  kind  of  thing?  " 

"  No,  I  thought  I  loved  him." 

"  How  could  you  have  thought  such  a  thing?  " 

"  It's  incredible,  but  I  did,  Papa.  I  loved  him 
right  up  to  the  moment  when  he  kissed  me.  And 
how  could  I  stop  him  after  having  looked  down 
at  my  toes,  and  said  '  Yes/  He's  been  kissing  me 
for  five  days  —  and,  Papa,  I  hate  him." 

The  fierceness  she  put  into  these  three  words  was 


INFATUATION  39 

vitriolic.  Disgust,  revulsion,  outraged  pride  flooded 
her  cheek  with  carmine. 

"  Papa,  I  can't  make  any  excuses  for  myself. 
It's  not  prudery;  it's  not  that;  but  somehow  the 
real  me  didn't  like  the  real  him,  and  that's  all  I  can 
say  about  it !  " 

"  You'll  have  to  write  to  him,  and  break  it  off." 

"  But  what  am  I  to  tell  him,  Papa  ?  It's  so 
awful  and  humiliating  for  him.  I  guess  I'll  just 
put  it  down  to  insanity  in  my  family." 

"  But,  good  Lord,  we  haven't  any  —  we've  a  very 
decent  record." 

"  Oh,  Papa,  I  simply  must  have  been  insane  to 
have  got  engaged  to  him. —  I'll  write  him  a  beauti- 
ful letter  of  regret,  and  inclose  a  doctor's  certifi- 
cate!" 

Her  incorrigible  humor  was  again  asserting  it- 
self. She  outlined  the  letter,  her  eyes  dancing  with 
merriment.  Mr.  Ladd,  in  no  mood  to  criticize  these 
swift  transitions,  joined  in  whole-heartedly.  They 
laughed  and  laughed  till  the  tears  came,  and  arrived 
home  like  noisy  children  from  a  party. 

Mrs.  Fensham,  in  a  very  decollete  gown,  and 
looking  like  a  sylph  of  twenty-five,  was  waiting  for 
the  carriage  to  take  her  to  a  ball.  She  swam  up 


4o  INFATUATION 

in  front  of  Bob,  and  raised  her  two  little  hands  to 
his  shoulders  —  a  graceful  gesture,  and  one  she  was 
very  fond  of. 

"  And  you  found  him  a  perfect  dear,  didn't  you?  " 
she  murmured  ecstatically. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  that  I  did,"  faltered  Brother 
Bob,  placing  a  kiss  on  the  top  of  her  head.  "  The 
fact  is,  Sally,  we've  decided  to  call  it  off !  " 

"  Bob,  you  haven't  broken  the  engagement ! " 

Her  lisping  voice  turned  suddenly  metallic.  She 
stared  from  her  brother  to  her  niece,  a  sylph  no 
longer,  but  a  woman  of  forty-five,  pale  with  appre- 
hension and  anger. 

"  Phyllis  has  made  a  mistake,  that's  all,"  he  said. 
"  He  looked  very  nice  in  the  show-window,  but 
now  we  are  going  to  take  him  back,  and  get  a 
credit-slip  for  something  we  want  more." 

"  A  new  automobile  coat  for  Papa,"  put  in  Phyl- 
lis mischievously. 

"  And  you  can  both  laugh  about  it !  "  exclaimed 
Aunt  Sarah  in  appalled  accents.  "  Laugh  at  throw- 
ing over  J.  Whitlock  Pastor!  Oh,  you  little 
Carthage  nobodies  —  haven't  you  any  sense  at  all 
—  don't  you  know  what  you  are  doing  —  isn't  he 
as  much  a  duke  with  us  as  any  Marlborough  or 


INFATUATION  41 

Newcastle  in  England?  He  was  too  good;  he  was 
too  nice;  he  wasn't  enough  of  a  snob  to  blow  and 
brag  —  and  that's  what  he  gets  for  it,  the  '  No  '  of 
a  silly  girl,  who'd  prefer  a  barber's  block  clerk  to 
the  greatest  gentleman  in  America ! " 

She  tottered  to  the  mantelpiece  and  burst  into 
tears  —  the  first  tears  she  had  shed  in  twenty 
worldly  and  scheming  years  —  and  the  only  tears 
that  did  attend  the  rupture  of  the  Pastor-Ladd  en- 
gagement. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THERE  was  the  usual  chatter,  the  usual 
slanders,  the  usual  innuendoes  that  fol- 
low such  an  event.  Charming  little  assas- 
sins, in  Paquin  gowns  and  picture  hats  flew  about 
sticking  pins  into  Phyllis'  reputation.  Those  worse 
gossips,  the  clubs,  were  not  behindhand  either;  and 
old  gentlemen,  who  ought  to  have  known  better, 
unctuously  laid  their  heads  together  and  passed  the 
lies  along.  It  is  so  much  the  custom  to  dwell  on 
the  good  side  of  human  nature  that  we  are  apt  to 
forget  the  existence  of  another  —  that  cruel  malig- 
nancy, which,  in  embryo,  may  be  seen  any  time  at 
the  monkey-house  in  the  Zoo.  In  its  more  devel- 
oped human  form  it  jostles  at  our  elbows  every 
day. 

The  American  duke  himself  behaved  with  a  beau- 
tiful propriety.  Publicly  he  took  all  the  blame  on 
his  own  shoulders,  and  hied  him  to  the  western 

42 


INFATUATION  43 

wilds  to  scourge  the  campers  and  cigarette-smokers 
who  infested  his  beloved  forests.  Thus  congenially 
employed,  he  was  quite  willing  to  wait  for  Time's 
healing  hand  to  do  the  rest.  In  a  year  he  was 
completely  reenameled,  and  took  a  finer  polish  than 
ever. 

Mr.  Ladd  hoped  that  Phyllis  would  return  to 
Carthage  to  hide  her  head  from  the  storm.  But 
she  insisted  on  staying  in  Washington,  and  "  seeing 
it  through,"  which  she  did  with  the  prettiest  de- 
fiance imaginable,  returning  pin  for  pin  with  gay 
insouciance,  and  dancing  the  night  out  in  all  man- 
ner of  lions'  dens.  In  her  veins  there  ran  the  blood 
of  that  old  aristocratic  South  —  of  those  fighting- 
cock  Frenchmen,  dark,  lithe  and  graceful,  who  had 
loved,  gambled  and  gone  the  pace  with  headlong 
recklessness  and  folly;  of  those  fiery  Spaniards, 
more  grave  and  still  more  dissolute,  to  whom  pride 
was  the  very  breath  of  life,  and  who  could  call  out  a 
man  and  shoot  him  with  the  stateliest  of  courtesy. — 
What  a  race  it  had  been  in  the  heyday  of  its  wild- 
ness  and  youth,  the  torment  of  women,  the  terror  of 
men,  alluring  even  now  through  the  haze  of  by-gone 
pistol-smoke!  And  though  it  has  been  dead  and 
gone  these  hundred  and  fifty  years,  the  strain  yet 


44  INFATUATION 

persists  in  some  Phyllis  here,  some  stripling  there, 
attenuated  perhaps,  but  far,  far  from  lost. 

Even  to-day  such  intrepidity  casts  its  spell.  The 
eyes  that  are  unafraid,  the  mouth  that  can  smile  in 
peril,  do  we  not  still  admire  their  possessor  —  and 
that  most  of  all  in  a  young,  high-bred  and  exceed- 
ingly attractive  woman  ?  Washington  certainly  did 
in  Phyllis  Ladd  —  young-man  Washington,  that  is, 
—  and  they  trooped  after  her  in  cohorts,  and  would 
have  drunk  champagne  from  her  little  slipper  had 
she  let  them. 

Months  rolled  by.  The  tide  of  Phyllis'  letters 
rose  in  Mr.  Ladd's  drawer  —  countless  pages  in 
that  fine  girlish  hand,  full  of  zest,  full  of  the  joy 
of  living,  revealing,  intimate,  and  silent  only  in  re- 
gard to  the  most  important  matter  of  all  —  J.  Whit- 
lock's  successor. 

Mr.  Ladd  knew  what  value  to  set  on  her  asser- 
tion that  she  was  "  tired  of  men."  He  waited,  not 
without  jealousy,  for  preference  to  show  itself; 
reading  and  re-reading  every  allusion  that  might 
afford  a  clue.  If  she  wrote  that  "  the  ambassador 
was  a  very  kind  old  man,  with  aristocratic  legs,  and 
a  profile  like  a  horse,  who  singled  me  out  for 


INFATUATION  45 

much  more  than  my  share  of  attention  " —  Mr. 
Ladd  would  forthwith  look  up  that  ambassador; 
fget  his  diplomatic  rating;  and  worry  about  his  be- 
ing sixty-six,  and  twice  a  widower. 

One  day,  quite  out  of  the  sky,  a  card  was  brought 
him  inscribed,  "  Captain  Baron  Sempft  von  Filler, 
First  Attache,  Imperial  German  Embassy,  Wash- 
ington." As  a  rule,  applicants  to  see  Mr.  Ladd  had 
first  to  state  their  business,  and  undergo  a  certain 
amount  of  sifting  before  they  were  admitted.  In 
this  manner  inventors  were  weeded  out,  cranks,  peo- 
ple with  a  grievance  against  the  claims'  department, 
book-agents,  labor-leaders,  charity-mongers,  bogus 
clergymen  who  had  been  refused  half-rates  —  all 
that  host  who  buzzed  like  mosquitoes  outside  Mr. 
Ladd's  net.  But  the  First  Attache  of  the  Imperial 
German  Embassy  was  given  an  open  track,  which 
he  took  with  a  military  stride,  and  the  clank  of  an 
invisible  sword. 

Mr.  Ladd  turned  in  his  chair,  and  beheld  a  florid, 
tall,  fine-looking  young  man  of  twenty-eight  or  so, 
with  the  stiff  carriage  of  a  Prussian  officer,  and 
unshrinking  blue  eyes  that  had  been  trained  not  to 
droop  in  the  face  of  anything. 

The  captain   wasted    no   time   in   preliminaries. 


46  INFATUATION 

In  a  carefully-rehearsed  sentence,  innocent  of  all 
punctuation,  and  delivered  in  a  breath,  he  said: 
"  It  is  not  my  intention  to  trespass  overlong  on  the 
time  of  I  know  a  much-engrossed  gentleman  but  if 
you  will  kindly  grant  me  three  minutes  I  shall  be 
happy  to  convince  you  of  the  integrity  of  my  char- 
acter and  the  honor  of  my  intentions  Mr.  Ladd 
Sir." 

Taking  another  breath  that  swelled  out  his  mag- 
nificent chest  at  least  four  inches,  he  resumed: 
"  This  I  now  lay  before  you  is  my  birth-certificate 
these  are  the  reports  on  my  gymnasium  courses  at 
Pootledam  respectively  marked  good  very  good  in- 
different good  very  good  till  inspired  by  the  thought 
of  a  military  career  I  entered  on  probation  subse- 
quently made  permanent  by  the  vote  of  my  fellow- 
officers  the  tenth  regiment  of  Uhlans  which  after 
six  years  of  honorable  commendation  I  left  regret- 
ted by  every  one  to  place  myself  in  the  diplomatic 
service  Mr.  Ladd  Sir." 

Taking  a  third  breath,  he  went  on: 

"  By  kindly  glancing  at  this  letter  which  I  have 
the  honor  to  bear  from  my  esteemed  chief  whom 
I  am  proud  also  to  call  my  friend  you  will  see  to 
your  complete  satisfaction  that  I  am  no  needy  ad- 


INFATUATION  47 

venturer  trading  on  an  historic  and  greatly-re- 
nowned name  but  a  man  of  substance  promise  and 
ability  with  the  assurance  of  reaching  if  I  live  the 
highest  place  it  is  in  the  power  of  my  country  and 
my  emperor  to  grant  Mr.  Ladd  Sir." 

He  was  inhaling  his  fourth  breath  when  Mr. 
Ladd  managed  to  interpose  a  speech  of  his  own. 

"  I  am  delighted  to  see  you,  captain,"  he  said, 
"  and  I  shall  be  happy  to  oblige  you  in  any  way  I 
can.  Perhaps  you  desire  to  inspect  what  is  really 
one  of  the  most  perfect  double-track  railroad  sys- 
tems in  this  country,  operated  at  the  minimum  of 
expense,  and  with  an  efficiency  that  makes  the  K.  B. 
and  O.  very  favorably  regarded  by  our  public.  If  it 
falls  below  the  high  standard  of  your  own  govern- 
ment-owned lines,  you  must  credit  us  with  a  traffic 
at  least  sixteen- fold  larger  per  mile  than  that  of 
yours.  I  will  ask  you  to  bear  this  in  mind  before 
making  too  critical  a  comparison." 

A  boyish  and  most  engaging  smile  overspread  the 
captain's  features,  and  for  the  moment  he  almost 
forgot  how  to  go  on  with  the  set  speech  he  had 
learned  so  carefully.  But  he  stiffened  his  shoulders, 
threw  back  his  head,  and  continued,  like  a  student 
up  for  a  difficult  and  trying  examination :  "  Be- 


48  INFATUATION 

fore  paying  my  addresses  to  one  whose  youth 
beauty  and  charm  has  taken  captive  a  heart  hitherto 
untouched  by  the  sentiment  of  love  I  judged  it  only 
right  as  a  gentleman  and  a  former  German  officer 
before  seeking  to  compromise  the  lady's  inclination 
in  any  way  whatever  to  provide  myself  with  the 
necessary  proofs  of  my  unassailable  position  and 
honor  and  lay  them  with  profound  respect  in  the 
hands  of  her  highly-considered  and  greatly-esteemed 
father  Mr.  Ladd  Sir." 

Mr.  Ladd  nearly  fell  off  his  chair  at  this  an- 
nouncement; but  controlling  himself,  he  bent  hastily 
over  the  papers,  and  managed  to  hide  his  stupefac- 
tion. He  was  very  much  bewildered,  and  though 
favorably  impressed  by  Von  Filler,  had  the  Ameri- 
can's distrust  of  all  foreigners,  particularly  if  titled. 
The  word  "  baron  "  conjured  up  horrible  stories  of 
imposture  and  mortification;  hungry  fortune-hunt- 
ers; shameless  masqueraders  preying  on  credulity 
and  snobbishness,  always  with  debts  at  home  and 
often  wives;  old-world  wolves  ravening  for  the 
trusting  lambs  of  the  new. 

But  the  ambassador's  letter  was  most  explicit, 
and  its  authenticity  could  be  tested  in  an  hour.  The 
craftiest  of  wolves  would  not  dare  to  take  such  a. 


INFATUATION  49 

risk.  Wonder  of  wonders,  it  seemed,  too,  that  the 
baron  was  rich  —  one  of  the  Westphalian  iron  kings 
—  with  great  landed  estates  besides.  Yes,  he  was 
certainly  a  very  eligible  young  man.  No  harm 
could  be  done  by  rising  and  shaking  hands  with 
him.  Mr.  Ladd  did  so,  impressively. 

"  You  are  very  punctilious,"  he  said.  "  I  wish 
we  had  more  of  that  ourselves.  Your  conduct  is 
manly  and  straightforward,  and  I  esteem  it  highly. 
Frankly,  I  should  prefer  my  daughter  to  marry  an 
American  —  but  if  a  foreigner  is  to  win  her,  I 
should  be  very  happy  to  have  that  foreigner  you." 

The  baron,  who  was  row  quite  out  of  set- 
speeches,  and  had  to  flounder  in  English  of  his  own 
making,  murmured :  "  I  lofe  her  —  oh,  how  I  lofe 
her !  My  friends  they  say,  *  crazy,  crazy/  but  I 
say,  '  no,  this  tells  me  I  am  wise.' ' 

And  with  that  he  pressed  his  hand  to  his  heart, 
with  an  air  of  such  simplicity  and  devotion  that  Mr. 
Ladd  was  touched. 

"  You're  a  fine  young  man,"  he  said,  "  and  I  wish 
you  luck." 

"  You  will  speak  well  of  me  to  her  ?  —  Manly, 
straightforward  —  you  will  say  those  words  ?  " 

"  With  pleasure,  Baron." 


The  florid  face  beamed;  the  blue  eyes  were  shin- 
ing; Mr.  Ladd  remembered  the  tendency  of  for- 
eigners to  embrace,  and  hastened  to  put  the  desk 
between  them. 

"  I  will  go  now,"  exclaimed  Von  Filler.  "  I  will 
what  you  call,  get  busy.  I  will  lay  at  her  little  feet 
the  heart  of  a  man  that  adores  her !  " 

"  Don't  be  in  too  big  a  hurry,"  said  the  railroad 
president  kindly.  "  Take  an  old  fellow's  advice ; 
begin  by  trying  to  make  a  good  impression." 

Von  Filler  smiled  complacently. 

"Already  have  I  done  it,"  he  remarked.  "  She 
likes  me  very  mooch.  The  battle  is  half-won,  and 
all  I  need  is  General  Papa  to  reinforce." 

It  suddenly  shot  through  General  Papa's  mind 
that  the  baron  was  not  so  simple  as  he  appeared. 
Mr.  Ladd's  first  feeling  of  compassion  for  a  hope- 
less suit  changed  to  a  grinding  jealousy.  It  was 
intolerable  to  him  that  anybody  should  carry  off  his 
precious  daughter,  and  this  amiable  young  man  at 
once  took  on  the  hue  of  an  enemy.  Their  farewell 
was  stiff  and  formal;  and  when,  two  hours  later, 
the  confirming  telegram  arrived  from  the  German 
embassy,  Mr.  Ladd  hotly  consigned  Captain  Baron 
Sempft  von  Filler  to  the  devil. 


CHAPTER  V 

VON  FILLER  had  not  under-estimated  the 
"  good  impression."  It  was  certainly  good 
enough  for  him  to  become,  two  days  later, 
the  successful  suitor  for  Phyllis'  hand.  The  en- 
gagement was  in  the  papers,  and  everybody  was 
happy  —  save  Mr.  Ladd.  On  top  of  his  natural 
resentment  at  any  poor  human  biped  in  trousers 
daring  to  aspire  to  his  daughter,  there  were  two  let- 
ters from  Washington  that  embittered  him  beyond 
measure.  The  one  was  from  Phyllis;  the  other 
from  Sarah  Fensham;  and  though  very  different  in 
expression  their  gist  was  the  same.  He  was  be- 
sought not  to  come  to  Washington. 

"  Dear,  darling  old  daddy,"  wrote  Phyllis,  "  The 
whole  thing  is  such  gossamer,  so  faint  and  delicate 
and  eider-downish,  that  one  belittling  look  of  yours, 
one  unguarded  and  critical  word  —  would  utterly 
destroy  it.  Of  course,  Sempft  is  not  the  Golden 
Young  Man,  and  I  know  it  very  well,  but  I  really 

51 


52  INFATUATION 

do  like  him  lots,  and  if  you  will  give  it  six  weeks 
to  '  set/  as  masons  say,  I  believe  that  it  will  turn 
very  nicely  into  love.  But  just  now — !  Oh, 
Papa,  the  poor  little  building  would  topple  so  easily 
• —  and  you  know  how  hard  I  have  found  it  already 
to  stay  too  close  to  those  big,  greedy,  grasping 
creatures  who  want  to  race  off  with  one  as  a 
poodle  does  with  a  stick.  Not  that  Sempft  isn't 
awfully  nice  and  considerate,  but  I  know  there  will 
be  times  when  — !  Oh,  Papa,  be  patient,  and  give 
me  a  chance,  for  if  you  should  hurry  over  and  catch 
me  in  the  right  humor,  I  would  send  him  away  so 
fast  that  he  would  think  he  was  fired  out  of  a  Za- 
linski  cannon !  " 

Sarah's  letter  was  in  a  more  wounding  strain: 
"  For  Heaven's  sake,  stay  away,  my  dearest  brother, 
or  you  will  ruin  everything.  That  girl  of  yours  is 
too  fastidious  and  wilful  for  belief,  and  from  the 
bottom  of  my  heart  I  am  sorry  for  the  poor  dear 
baron,  who  is  making  such  a  goddess  out  of  an 
icicle.  She  is  possessed  of  the  same  insane  pride 
that  you  have,  and  is  quite  of  your  own  opinion  that 
nobody  is  good  enough  for  her.  After  bringing  her 
up  all  wrong,  don't  add  to  your  folly  by  breaking 
Qff  a  second  splendid  match.  Stay  in  Carthage, 


INFATUATION  53 

and  try  to  acquiesce  in  the  fact  that  sooner  or  later 
she  is  bound  to  marry  somebody;  and  thank  your 
stars  that  it  is  somebody  to  be  proud  of.  I  know 
she  is  too  good  for  any  one  but  an  archangel,  but 
still,  steel  yourself  to  accept  a  young,  wealthy,  hand- 
some, brilliant,  accomplished,  high-born  and  dis- 
tinguished son-in-law,  who  has  the  world  at  his 
feet.  Naturally  to  you  it  is  an  intolerable  prospect. 
I  don't  ask  you  to  say  that  it  is  not.  But  for 
Heaven's  sake,  remain  in  Carthage,  and  keep  your 
sulks  at  a  distance." 

After  his  first  anger  had  passed,  Mr.  Ladd  took 
himself  seriously  to  task,  and  forced  that  other  self 
of  his  to  admit  the  undeniable  justice  of  both  these 
letters.  He  was  a  cantankerous,  cross-grained  old 
curmudgeon,  and  the  right  place  for  a  cantankerous, 
cross-grained  old  curmudgeon  was  unquestionably 
— Carthage.  If  he  were  so  utterly  unable  to  make 
allowances  for  youth  and  immaturity  —  and  he  had 
to  assent  to  the  fact  that  he  was  unable  —  he  ought, 
at  any  rate,  to  have  the  grace  to  keep  his  fault- 
finding face  turned  to  the  wall.  Phyllis  was  right. 
Sarah  was  right.  Everybody  was  right,  except  a 
hot-headed  old  fellow,  with  a  sick  and  jealous  heart, 
who,  if  he  did  not  restrain  himself,  would  end  by 


54  INFATUATION 

marring  his  daughter's  future  beyond  recall. —  Yes, 
he  would  hold  himself  in;  he  would  do  nothing 
to  incur  reproach;  he  would  let  things  take  their 
course,  and  pretend  to  be  a  sort  of  Sunny  Jim, 
smilingly  regarding  events  from  Carthage. 

It  was  none  too  easy  an  undertaking,  but  he 
was  sustained  in  some  degree  by  the  hurried  little 
scrawls  that  reached  him,  day  by  day,  from  Phyllis. 
—  It  was  all  going  splendidly.  She  was  so  proud 
of  Sempft.  He  was  everywhere  such  a  favorite. 
He  was  so  high-spirited,  and  manly  —  and  so  crazily 
in  love  with  her.  It  was  nice  to  have  him  so  crazily 
in  love  with  her.  It  was  nice  to  lead  such  a  big, 
swaggering  soldier  by  a  pink  ribbon  —  to  pin  him 
with  a  little,  girlish  ticket  marked  "  reserved  " — 
to  see  him  jump  at  the  mere  raising  of  an  eye- 
brow when  some  embezzling  young  debutante  had 
sneaked  him  away  into  a  corner. —  Then  there  was 
the  engagement  ring  she  could  not  pull  her  glove 
over,  with  diamonds  so  large  and  flashing  that  they'd 
light  the  gas;  there  was  the  gorgeous  pearl-neck- 
lace, which  Aunt  Sarah  would  not  allow  her  to 
accept  yet;  there  was  the  emperor's  wonderful 
cablegram  of  congratulation,  all  about  Germany  and 
America,  as  though  the  two  countries  were  en- 


INFATUATION  55 

gaged,  instead  of  merely  she  and  Sempft.  It  made 
her  feel  so  important,  so  international  —  and  hor- 
rid, shabby  men  snap-shotted  her  on  the  street  like 
a  celebrity,  walking  backwards  with  cameras  in 
their  hands  while  everybody  fell  over  everybody  to 
see  what  was  going  on !  —  Oh,  yes,  Papa,  she  was 
saving  it  up  to  brag  about  to  her  grandchildren  — • 
when  she  was  a  tiresome  old  lady  'in  a  castle  corner, 
with  nothing  to  do  but  bore  chubby  little  German 
aristocrats. 

Her  gaiety  and  sprightliness  never  wavered. 
Her  content,  her  happiness  were  transparent.  If 
her  ardor  for  Baron  von  Filler  seemed  never  to 
pass  the  big-brother  limits,  it  might  be  assumed 
she  concealed  her  feelings,  and  was  either  too  shy 
or  too  modest  to  betray  them.  Mr.  Ladd,  who  read 
her  letters  with  a  microscope,  noticed  the  omission, 
and  —  wondered.  His  misgivings  were  not  un- 
tinged  with  pleasure.  Did  she  really  love  this  man, 
he  asked  himself  again  and  again?  It  was  im- 
possible to  be  certain.  Had  it  not  been  for  the 
J.  Whitlock  Pastor  episode  he  would  have  been 
in  less  doubt.  But  with  this  in  mind,  he  could  not 
help  wondering  —  wondering  a  great  deal. 

The  answer  to   these  conjectures  came   with  a 


56  INFATUATION 

startling  unexpectedness.  One  afternoon,  on  his 
return  home,  he  found  the  front  door  open,  and 
an  expressman  staggering  up  to  it  with  a  trunk. 
In  the  hall  were  five  more  trunks,  and  Henry  and 
Edwards,  both  in  shirt-sleeves,  were  departing  for 
the  upper  regions  with  another.  Before  Mr.  Ladd 
could  ask  a  question  there  was  a  swift  rush  of 
skirts,  an  inroad  of  barking  dogs,  and  a  radiant 
young  person  was  hanging  to  his  neck  with  round, 
bare  arms.  It  was  Phyllis,  her  eyes  dancing,  her 
face  flushed  with  the  romp  she  had  been  having  with 
the  dogs,  her  hair  in  wild  disorder,  and  half  down 
her  back. 

"  I'm  home,  Papa,"  she  cried,  "  home  for  good, 
and  in  such  awful  disgrace  you  oughtn't  to  take 
me  in!  Yes,  your  wayward  girl  has  crept  back  to 
the  dear  old  farm,  and  though  the  snow  was  deep, 
and  all  she  had  was  a  crust  from  a  crippled  child  — 
she's  here,  Papa,  at  last,  and,  oh,  oh,  oh,  so  glad! 
—  Down,  Watch,  down !  Teddy,  you'll  get  one  in 
the  nose  if  you  don't  stop !  —  Oh,  the  little  wretch 
has  got  my  slipper  off !  " 

Teddy  scampered  away  with  it,  and  there  was 
a  lively  tussle  before  it  was  recovered,  with  all 
manner  of  laughter  and  slaps  and  growls. 


INFATUATION  57 

"  But  Captain  von  Filler  ?  "  demanded  Mr.  Ladd. 
"  Is  he  coming?  Is  he  here,  too?  " 

"  No,  Papa,"  she  returned,  "  he  isn't  here,  and 
he  never  will  be  here,  and  I  left  him  screaming 
till  you  could  hear  it  all  over  Washington.  Just 
howling,  Papa,  and  calling  for  warships!  And 
Aunt  Sarah  was  hollering,  too,  till  the  only  dignified 
thing  left  was  to  tie  my  sheets  together  and  let 
myself  out,  which  I  did  before  there  was  a  riot!" 

"  Phyllis,  you  don't  mean  that  your  engage- 
ment — " 

"  Hush,  Papa,  we  can't  talk  here. —  Come  up- 
stairs to  your  den." 

There  she  heaped  up  a  dozen  pillows  on  the 
divan;  settled  herself  with  Watch's  head  on  her 
lap,  and  Wally  and  Teddy  beside  her;  asked  if 
there  were  any  chocolate  creams,  and  resigned  her- 
self to  there  being  none ;  and  then,  pushing  back  the 
soft,  thick  hair  from  her  eyes,  told  her  father  to 
sit  at  her  feet,  and  not  to  crowd  a  valuable  dog. 

"Yes,  all  that's  finished,"  she  said.  "It  was 
splendid  and  international,  and  all  that,  but  I  could 
not  stand  it  any  more.  He  was  just  like  poor  Whit- 
lock,  only  worse.  I  don't  know  how  to  describe  it, 
Papa,  for  he  was  awfully  correct  and  all  that  —  I 


58  INFATUATION 

wouldn't  for  worlds  have  you  think  he  wasn't  — 
only  he  expected  all  the  conventional  things  that  go 
with  being  engaged,  and  wanted  me  to  nestle  against 
his  waistcoat,  and,  and  —  pant  with  joy  I  suppose  — 
and  whisper  what  a  beautiful,  wonderful,  irresist- 
ible, bubble-bubble-bubble  person  he  was  —  and 
shyly  kiss  his  hand,  probably —  Oh,  well,  Papa, 
I  tried  to,  and  I  didn't  like  it,  and  in  spite  of  myself 
it  seemed  wrong  and  humiliating  —  and  he  was  so 
large,  and  pink,  and  German,  and  so  much  of  him 
rolled  over  his  collar,  and  everybody  seemed  in 
such  a  conspiracy  to  poke  us  into  dark  corners  and 
leave  us  there,  and  so  finally  I  just  said,  '  No,  I've 
made  a  mistake,  and  here's  your  ring,  and  here's 
the  cablegram  from  the  Kaiser,  and  here's  the  pho- 
tograph of  your  dead  mother  —  and  would  you 
mind  getting  out  of  my  life,  please?  —  and  friends 
are  requested  to  accept  this  the  only  intimation.' ' 

"  And  how  did  he  take  it?  " 

"  He  wouldn't  take  it  —  that  was  the  trouble. 
He  made  a  frightful  fuss.  He  couldn't  have  made 
more  if  we  had  been  really  married,  and  I  had  an- 
nounced my  intention  of  running  away  with  the 
elevator-boy !  He  scrunched  my  hands  till  I  thought 
the  bones  would  break,  and  might  have  thrown 


INFATUATION  59' 

me  out  of  the  window  if  tea  hadn't  come  in  the 
nick  of  time.  Then  he  went  off  to  Aunt  Sarah, 
with  the  German  idea  of  stinging  up  the  family  — 
as  though  twenty  aunts  could  make  me  love  a  man 
I  didn't  —  and  succeeded  so  well  that  she  prac- 
tically drove  me  out.  Oh,  her  position!  I  never 
heard  the  end  of  it  —  and  of  course  she  said  I  had 
ruined  it,  and  that  she  never  could  hold  up  her 
head  again.  The  only  thing  to  do  was  to  run.  So 
I  ran  and  ran  and  ran  —  to  my  old  dad !  " 

She  slipped  her  hand  down,  and  held  her  father's 
collar  as  though  he,  too,  were  a  dog,  and  gave  it 
an  affectionate  little  tug. 

"  My  darling  old  dad,"  she  murmured. 

"  It's  not  so  bad  to  have  one,  is  it  ?  "  he  said. 
"  To  know  where  there  is  a  snug  harbor,  and  an 
old  fellow  who  thinks  you  are  perfect,  and  every- 
thing you  do  is  right.  You  will  get  a  lot  of  criti- 
cism for  this,  and  I  suppose  Washington  will  boil 
over  —  but  to  my  thinking,  you  couldn't  have  done 
better,  and  I  am  thankful  for  your  courage.  If 
you  don't  love  a  man,  for  God's  sake,  don't  marry 
him,  even  if  you're  both  walking  up  the  aisle,  and 
he's  twiddling  the  ring!  —  To  tell  the  truth,  I 
wasn't  a  bit  partial  to  Von  Filler,  and  found  it 


60  INFATUATION 

pretty  hard  to  sit  tight,  and  be  told  he  Was  forty 
different  kinds  of  a  paragon." 

"  My  darling  Papa,"  she  observed  sweetly, 
"  you're  never  going  to  like  anybody  who  wants 
to  marry  me,  and  it's  sure  to  cost  me  some  worry 
when  the  right  person  does  come. —  Do  you  sup- 
pose he  ever  will  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  guess  so." 

"  In  spite  of  the  awful  record  I  have  made  ? 
Aunt  Sarah  says  I  am  branded  as  a  coquette,  and 
no  decent  man  will  ever  have  anything  more  to 
do  with  me." 

"  Rubbish." 

Phyllis  fondled  Watch's  ears,  which  were  long 
and  silky,  and  tried  the  effect  on  dog-beauty  of 
overlapping  them  on  his  head. 

"  Papa,  what's  the  matter  with  me  ?  Why 
haven't  I  any  sense?  Why  am  I  not  like  other 
girls?" 

"  You  are  very  fastidious." 

"Yes,  that's  true." 

"  And  very  proud." 

"Yes,  inherited." 

"And  demand  a  great  deal." 


You're  never  going  to  like  anybody  who  wants  to  marry  me. — Page  60 


INFATUATION  61 

"  Yes  —  everything." 

"  You  are  in  love  with  love  —  and  are  rather 
in  a  hurry." 

"  Oh,  Papa  —  shut  your  eyes  —  I  am  love- 
hungry.  I  want  to  love  —  I'm  crazy  to  love.  Only 
__  only  — " 

"  The  right  man  hasn't  arrived  ?  " 

"  I  hope  it's  that.  If  it  isn't,  I'm  going  to  have 
a  bad  time  of  it.  It  seems  so  useless;  this  getting 
engaged  and  then  hating  the  poor  wretch. —  It's 
such  a  terrible  waste  of  energy  and  heart-beats  all 
round." 

"Dad  included." 

"  What  a  nuisance  I  am,  to  be  sure !  I've  ex- 
hausted everybody's  patience  except  yours,  and 
that's  getting  thin.  It  will  end  in  my  living  alone 
in  a  shanty  with  nothing  but  dogs,  and  the  faded 
photographs  of  the  men  I've  thrown  over.  Aunt 
Sarah  called  me  an  awful  name;  called  me  an  en- 
gagement-buster; said  that  the  habit  would  grow 
and  grow  till  I  was  a  horrid  old  maid  with  nothing 
to  tease  but  a  parrot. —  Though  I'd  love  to  have  a 
parrot  —  two  of  them  —  and  raise  little  parrots! 
Little  fluffy  baby  parrots  must  be  adorable.  Papa, 
let's  buy  a  pair  to-morrow,  and  you'll  teach  the 


62  INFATUATION 

he-one  to  swear,  and  I'll  teach  the  she-one  to  be 
gentle  and  submissive  and  always  have  her  own 
way.  And  Papa  —  ?  " 

"Yes,  dearest?" 

"  You  aren't  cross  with  me,  are  you  ?  " 

"  Not  a  bit." 

"And  I  may  live  with  you,  and  add  up  your 
bills,  and  bring  you  your  slippers,  and  dream  all 
day  of  that  Golden  Young  Man  who  doesn't  ex- 
ist?" 

"  Oh,  don't  say  that  —  he  does,  Phyllis." 

"  Papa,  he  doesn't,  he  doesn't,  he  doesn't! " 


CHAPTER  VI 

SOCIALLY  speaking  Carthage  was  as  distant 
from  Washington  as  is  Timbuctoo.  While 
the  Von  Filler  hurricane  was  raging  in  the 
nation's  capital,  the  Carthage  barometer  showed 
"  fair  and  rising."  To  a  storm-tossed  little  mariner, 
it  was  like  gaining  the  lee  of  some  palmy  isle,  and 
casting  anchor  in  still  water.  The  islanders,  too,  if 
a  trifle  homespun  and  provincial,  were  the  most  de- 
lightful people,  and  unspoiled  by  any  intrusion  of  a 
higher  civilization.  Phyllis  had  not  realized  how 
entirely  her  outlook  had  changed  until  she  returned 
to  her  own  home.  She  saw  her  former  school  fel- 
lows with  new  eyes,  and  while  she  could  not  forbear 
smiling  at  some  of  their  ways,  she  liked  them 
better  than  ever  before. —  They,  on  their  side,  re- 
garded with  awe  this  fashionable  young  beauty, 
who  had  jilted  a  Pastor,  and  given  the  mitten  to 
a  real,  live,  guaranteed  baron,  and  who  had  de.- 

63 


64  INFATUATION 

scended  in  their  midst,  like  a  racer  in  a  paddock  of 
donkeys. 

Some  of  them  felt  very  donkeyfied  indeed.  Tom 
Fergus,  a  gelatinous  young  man,  somewhat  for- 
ward and  familiar,  who  was  alluded  to  in  the  local 
papers  as  "  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  younger  set " 
said  she  was  "  raving  pretty,  but,  my  stars,  what 
was  a  fellow  to  talk  to  her  about  ?  "  Billy  Phill- 
pots,  who  worked  in  his  father's  store  (many  of 
the  young  fellows  "  worked  in  his  father's  store  " ) 
vetoed  her  as  "  insufferably  stuck  up,"  he  having 
escorted  her  home  one  night,  and  failed  to  extort 
the  usual  toll  at  the  garden-gate. —  The  good  night 
kiss  at  the  garden-gate  was  quite  a  Carthage  in- 
stitution, and  as  innocent  as  the  kiss  of  an  early 
Christian. 

Life  in  Carthage  was  altogether  Early  Christian 
—  for  the  young  people  of  the  better  families. 
They  met  every  night,  and  moved  in  flocks,  like 
sparrows,  alighting  first  in  one  house  and  then 
another  —  taking  up  the  carpets  for  dancing,  im- 
provising* suppers,  crowding  round  the  fireplaces 
to  sing,  and  tell  stories.  Presumably  there  was 
some  social  line  drawn  somewhere;  but  money  at 
least  counted  for  little,  and  anybody  that  was  "  nice  " 


INFATUATION  65 

was  allowed  in.  And  it  must  be  said,  on  the  whole, 
that  they  were  remarkably  "  nice,"  and  very  much 
a  credit  to  high-class  democracy.  The  boys  were 
well-mannered,  brotherly  and  respectful;  the  girls 
charming  in  their  blitheness  and  gaiety.  Occasion- 
ally there  was  a  match,  and  a  couple  disappeared  as 
completely  as  though  they  had  fallen  into  the  river 
and  been  swept  away.  You  couldn't  marry,  and 
still  be  a  sparrow.  No,  indeed!  You  passed  into 
another  world,  and  six  months  after  the  sparrows 
would  hardly  know  you  on  the  street.  One  would 
not  venture  to  say  this  was  cruel  —  though  it 
always  came  as  a  shock  to  the  newly-wedded  pair  — 
it  was  just  the  sparrow  way,  that's  all. 

Phyllis  was  soon  flying  with  the  rest  of  them, 
and  her  ready  adaptability  caused  her  to  be  accepted 
in  their  midst  without  more  than  a  passing  hesita- 
tion. Hiding  her  riper  and  more  womanly  nature, 
and  absorbing  herself  in  this  animated  triviality, 
she  pretended  to  be  as  much  a  sparrow  as  any 
of  the  flock,  and  no  less  lively  and  empty-headed. 
She  was  lonely,  heart-tired,  and  very  much  adrift 
on  the  sea  of  life;  and  in  the  engaging  childishness 
of  these  girls  and  boys,  who,  though  of  her  own 
age,  were  mentally  only  up  to  her  elbow,  she  found 


66  INFATUATION 

a  sort  of  solace,  a'  sort  of  peace.  They  kept  her 
from  thinking;  their  chatter  and  good  spirits  were 
exhilarating;  the  naive  admiration  of  the  young 
men  warmed,  and  yet  did  not  disturb  her. —  Before 
her  long  flight  to  other  skies,  the  little  bird  might 
well  be  thankful  for  the  sparrows. 

Spring  came  —  summer.  Her  twenty-first  birth- 
day passed  in  the  Adirondacks,  where  her  father 
had  a  cottage  in  that  wilderness  of  woods  and  lakes. 
She  was  in  her  twenty-second  year  now,  and  knew 
what  it  was  to  feel  old  —  oh,  so  old!  That  she 
was  able,  by  the  laws  of  the  land,  to  buy  and  hold 
real-estate  seemed  but  a  poor  set-off  to  this  en- 
croachment of  time  —  though  her  father  repeatedly 
pointed  out  this  new  privilege  the  years  had  brought. 
She  could  marry,  too,  without  his  consent  — another 
empty  concession  to  maturity,  considering  there  was 
no  one  to  marry  with  or  without  it.  Of  course, 
there  were  a  few  silly  babies  running  after  her  as 
though  she  were  a  woolly  sheep  —  but  no  one  that 
the  wildest  stretch  of  imagination  could  consider 
a  man.  Some  of  their  fathers  ran,  too  —  stout 
widowers  panting  with  the  unaccustomed  exertion, 
—  but  that  was  grotesque  and  disgusting.  Far  or 
wide,  high  or  low,  there  wasn't  a  pin  feather  of 


INFATUATION  67 

the  Golden  Young  Man.  His  noble  race  was  ex- 
tinct. He  lived  in  books,  but  you  never  met  him. 
Never,  never.  He  had  died  out  a  million  years 
ago,  leaving  nothing  save  a  tradition  for  poets  and 
novelists  to  paw  over. 

Quite  convinced  that  it  was  a  wretched  world, 
Phyllis  danced  and  rode,  picnicked  and  camped  out 
after  deer  in  a  bewitching  Wild  West  costume,  and 
was  always  the  first  to  a  party,  and  the  last  to  leave 
it  —  all  very  much  like  one  who  found  it  tolerable 
enough.  Some  would  have  called  her  an  insatiable 
little  pleasure-seeker,  and  been  wholly  misled. 
"  What  are  any  of  us  doing  except  waiting  for  a 
man?"  she  once  announced  with  shocking  candor. 
"  It's  the  fashion  to  talk  of  *  other  interests '  and 
we  girls  are  all  graduating,  and  slumming,  and 
teaching  little  foreign  Jews  to  sing  My  Country 
'Tis  of  Thee,  and  Columbia,  Gem  of  the  Ocean, 
and  learning  to  be  trained  nurses  and  bacteriologists 
—  just  in  the  effort  to  save  our  poor  little  self- 
respect.  We  ruin  our  complexions,  dim  our  eyes, 
and  spoil  our  nice  hands  —  all  the  property  of  some 
future  lord  and  master,  whom  we  really  are  pilfer- 
ing —  and  who's  deceived  ?  Who  takes  it  seriously  ? 
We  don't,  who  do  it.  Poof,  what  a  pretense  it  is! 


68  INFATUATION 

—  If  you  have  to  wait,  why  not  two-step  through 
it  as  I  do,  and  be  as  happy  as  you  can,  like  people 
snowed  up  in  a  train.  That's  what  a  young  girl 
is  —  snowed  up  —  and  I  only  wish  some  one  would 
come  with  a  spade  and  dig  me  out !  " 

These  racy  confidences  entertained  and  delighted 
her  father,  but  on  other  people  they  often  had  a 
contrary  effect.  The  truth  from  the  lips  of  babes 
and  sucklings,  however  phenomenal,  is  also  discon- 
certing. Old  women,  who  in  private  taught  their 
daughters  a  revolting  cynicism,  and  called  it  "  put- 
ting them  on  their  guard,"  were  much  overcome 
by  Phyllis'  frankness.  It  was  "  bold  " ;  it  was  "  un- 
ladylike"; it  was  "dreadful."  They  tore  Phyllis 
to  pieces,  and  prophesied  the  most  awful  things. 
It  may  be  that  they  were  right.  Selfishness  is  a 
fine  ballast,  and  an  anxious  regard  for  number  one 
keeps  many  a  little  ship  on  an  undeviating  course. 
Phyllis  was  made  to  smart  for  her  unconventional 
sayings,  and  they  often  came  back  to  her,  so  dis- 
torted and  coarsened  by  their  travels,  that  her  cheeks 
flushed  with  anger. 

"  There's  one  thing  I  am  learning  fast,"  she  said, 
"  and  that  is,  all  my  friends  seem  to  be  men,  and 
all  my  enemies,  women  —  and  I  may  as  well  get 


INFATUATION  69 

used  to  it  now.  I  know  there  are  a  few  exceptions 
either  way,  but  it's  substantially  that,  anyhow,  and 
one  might  as  well  face  up  to  it,  and  save  trouble." 

"  I'm  afraid  you  are  what  they  call  a  man's 
woman,  my  dear,"  said  Mr.  Ladd. 

"  I'm  glad  of  it,"  exclaimed  Phyllis  saucily.  "  I 
don't  want  to  be  any  other  kind  of  a  woman,  least 
of  all  one  of  those  sneaking,  cowardly,  backbiting, 
hypocritical  things.  I  don't  wonder  they  used  to 
whip  them  in  the  good  old  days.  If  men  hadn't 
degenerated  so  terribly,  they'd  be  whipping  them 
now!" 

Autumn  saw  her  back  in  Carthage  again.  Aunt 
Sarah  was  begging  to  have  her  for  another  Wash- 
ington winter,  and  was  in  a  beautifully  forgiving 
humor.  The  breaches  in  her  social  position  had 
been  repaired,  and  the  Demon  Want,  confound  him, 
was  knocking  loudly  at  the  door  of  her  elegant 
establishment  —  so  that  the  hope  of  another  visit, 
with  its  accompanying  shower  of  Brother  Bob's 
gold,  loomed  very  attractively  before  these  cold, 
blue  eyes.  But  Phyllis  could  not  be  beguiled;  she 
had  no  wish  to  repeat  that  mad  winter;  her  mood 
was  all  the  other  way  —  for  her  big  tranquil  house, 


7o  INFATUATION 

her  books,  her  dogs,  her  horses,  and  long  dreaming 
hours  to  herself,  undisturbed.  She  had  loved  Wash- 
ington, and  had  exhausted  it.  The  strain  of  its 
business-like  gaiety  was  not  to  be  endured  again. 
It  was  a  factory  of  pleasure,  and  the  hours  over- 
long,  the  tasks  over-hard.  Aunt  Sarah  might  ring 
the  bell  all  she  wished,  but  the  factory  that  winter 
would  be  one  toiler  short.  When  a  person  has 
entered  her  twenty-second  year,  that  advanced  age 
brings  with  it  a  certain  serenity  unknown  to  wilder 
twenty.  You  are  glad  to  lie  back  with  a  dog's 
head  in  your  lap,  and  lazily  watch  the  procession. 
Silly  young  men,  choking  in  immense  collars,  no 
longer  can  keep  you  out  of  bed  till  three  A.  M. 
Let  the  new  debutantes  have  that  doubtful  joy. 
Twenty-two  preferred  her  book,  and  her  silent 
rooms. —  Not  that  Carthage  was  without  its  simple 
relaxations,  but  they  were  well  spaced  out,  with 
long  intervals  between. 

"  Miss  Daisy  wants  you  on  the  'phone,  Miss." 
"  Oh,    all    right  —  I'm    coming. —  Hello,    hello, 
hello  —     What   a   dear  you   are  to   ask   me  —  A 
—  matinee  Wednesday?     Love  to!  —  What's  it  to 
be?" 


INFATUATION  71 

"  Oh,  Phyllis,  you  won't  be  offended,  will  you, 
but  I'm  so  poor,  and  their  boxes  are  only  five 
dollars,  and  will  hold  six,  and  they've  promised  to 
squeeze  in  three  more  chairs  —  and  so  I've  invited 
nine  —  and  it's  in  that  cheap,  horrid  Thalia  Theater, 
but  nobody  can  hurt  us  in  a  box,  and  everybody  says 
the  play's  wonderful,  and  you  can  eat  peanuts, 
which  you  can't  do  in  a  real  theater;  and  it's 
Moths,  by  Ouida,  and  Cyril  Adair  is  the  star,  and 
he  is  so  wonderfully  handsome  —  oh,  you  must 
have  seen  his  pictures  in  the  barber-shop  windows 
—  and  anyway,  even  if  he  isn't,  the  play  is  delight- 
fully wicked  —  because  I  had  such  a  fight  with 
mama  about  it,  and  then  Howard  has  been  twice, 
which  he  wouldn't  have  done  if  it  wasn't ;  and  even 
if  it  isn't,  how  am  I  to  give  a  theater-party  on  no 
more  than  five  dollars?  The  Columbia  boxes  are 
fifteen,  and  so  are  the  Lyceum's,  and  when  they 
say  six,  it's  six,  and  you  simply  couldn't  dare  to 
ask  nine  girls  because  they  wouldn't  let  them  in. 
But  the  Thalia  man  was  so  pleased  and  impressed 
that  I  believe  he  would  have  included  ice-cream  if 
I  had  asked  him  —  and  Phyllis  ?  " 

"Yes,  darling." 

"It  would  give  such  a  lot  of  ginger  to  it,  if 


72  INFATUATION 

you  would  lend  me  your  carriage  and  the  dog- 
cart — !  Oh,  I  knew  you  would !  What  a  com- 
fort you  are,  Phyllis.  I  don't  know  how  I'd  get 
along  without  you,  you  are  always  so  generous  and 
obliging.  Nettie  Havens  has  volunteered  tea  at 
her  house  —  just  insisted  on  it  when  I  told  her. 
I  guess  that  poor  little  five  never  went  so  far  in 
all  its  little  history!  I  can't  think  it  ever  ran  a 
whole  theater-party  before,  with  carriages  and  teas. 
It's  an  awful  tacky  way  of  doing  things,  I  admit, 
but  what  does  it  matter  if  we  have  a  good  time?  — 
Yes,  that's  the  only  way  to  look  at  it,  and  you're 
a  darling.  Do  you  know  I  think  Harry  Thayre 
is  sweet  on  — !  Oh,  bother,  she  says  I've  to  ring 
off,  or  pay  another  nickel.  If  it  was  a  man  she'd  let 
him  have  fifteen  cents'  worth!  Well,  good-by, 
good-by  — ! " 

It  was  a  pretty  sight  they  presented  in  their  box, 
a  veritable  flower-bed  of  young  American  woman- 
hood. The  bright,  girlish  faces,  the  laughter,  the 
animation,  the  sparkling  eyes,  the  ripples  of  merri- 
ment, the  air  of  innocent  bravado  —  all  were  in 
such  contrast  to  the  usual  patrons  of  the  Thalia 
that  the  house  could  not  take  its  eyes  off  them. 


INFATUATION  73 

It  was  essentially  a  shop-girl-and-best-young-man 
theater,  with  a  hoodlum  gallery,  and  a  general  ap- 
pearance of  extreme  youth.  Those  who  did  not 
chew  glim  were  almost  conspicuous,  and  a  formida- 
ble young  man  with  a  voice  of  brass,  perambulated 
the  aisles  with  a  large  tray,  and  terrorized  nickels 
and  dimes  from  the  pockets  of  swains.  He  had  a 
humorous  directness  that  made  the  price  of  immu- 
nity seem  cheap  at  the  money.  It  was  worth  a 
dime  any  time  to  escape  him. 

And  the  play? 

It  was  a  rousing  love-story,  crude,  stilted,  old- 
fashioned,  but  developed  with  a  force  and  earnest- 
ness that  Ouida  has  always  possessed.  The  brutal 
Prince,  the  ill-used  Princess,  Correze,  the  idol  of  the 
public,  the  tenor  whose  voice  has  taken  the  world 
by  storm,  heart-broken  and  noble  in  his  hopeless 
love  —  here  were  full-blooded  situations  to  make 
the  heart  beat.  And  how  nine  of  them  did  beat 
in  that  crowded  box.  And  what  scalding  tears 
rolled  down  those  youthful  cheeks!  And  what 
little  fists  clenched  as  the  Prince,  passing  all  bounds, 
and  incensed  to  frenzy,  struck  —  positively  struck 
—  the  adorable  being  who  was  clinging  so  des- 
perately to  honor  and  duty!  Who  could  blame 


74  INFATUATION 

Correze  for  what  was  to  follow?  Assuredly  not 
our  nine  rosebuds,  who,  if  anything,  found  the 
splendid  creature  almost  too  backward,  too  self- 
sacrificing.  But  — ! 

And  Cyril  Adair,  who  played  Correze  with  a 
fervid  pathos  that  tore  the  heart  out  of  your  breast ! 
Of  course,  you  knew  he  had  taken  the  world  by 
storm.  Of  course  you  knew  the  public  idolized 
him.  Wasn't  he  the  handsomest,  manliest,  most 
chivalrous  fellow  alive  ?  Hadn't  he  a  voice  to  melt 
a  stone,  or  drive,  as  cutting  as  a  rapier,  through 
even  a  Prince?  His  firm  chin,  his  faultless  teeth, 
his  strange,  smoldering,  compelling  eyes,  his  vig- 
orous yet  graceful  frame  —  small  wonder  that  the 
Princess  threw  everything  to  the  winds  for  such  a 
man.  Under  the  circumstances  none  of  the  nine 
would  have  waited  half  so  long.  The  Princess' 
devotion  to  honor  and  duty  seemed  hardly  less  than 
morbid.  Her  patience  under  insults  was  positively 
exasperating.  She  clung  to  respectability  with  both 
hands  —  screamed,  raged,  but  stuck  to  it  as  tight 
as  a  limpet  —  until  a  blow  in  the  face,  and  the  vilest 
of  epithets  from  her  brutal  husband,  toppled  her 
finally  to  perdition  —  that  is,  if  it  were  perdition 


INFATUATION  75 

to  link  the  remainder  of  her  life  with  that  glorious 
being,   and   abandon   everything   for  love. 

The  box  applauded  wildly,  and  led  off  the  whole 
house.  The  curtain  was  made  to  rise  again  and 
again.  Correze,  advancing  to  the  footlights,  was 
left  in  no  doubt  as  to  where  he  had  scored  his  heavi- 
est hit,  and  rewarded  those  eager,  girlish  faces  with 
a  glance  of  his  fine  eyes,  and  a  bow  intended  for 
them  alone.  Phyllis  was  the  least  enthusiastic  of 
the  party,  and  her  silence  during  the  first  intermis- 
sion was  noisily  commented  on.  She  ate  caramels 
slowly,  and  added  nothing  but  monosyllables  and 
an  enigmatic  smile  to  the  rapturous  demonstrations 
of  her  companions.  But  had  they  noticed  her  dur- 
ing the  further  course  of  the  performance,  they 
might  have  had  something  else  to  wonder  at.  With 
parted  lips,  and  breath  so  faint  that  she  seemed  not 
to  breathe  at  all  —  with  a  face  paling  to  marble, 
and  poignant  with  a  curious  and  unreasoning  dis- 
tress, her  eyes  never  quitted  those  of  Cyril  Adair, 
and  fixed  themselves  on  his  in  a  stare  so  troubled, 
so  fascinated,  that  her  soul  seemed  to  leave  her 
body  and  to  pass  the  footlights. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  tea  that  followed  was  but  a  blurred 
memory,  a  confused  recollection  of  noise 
and  chatter,  with  a  stab  at  the  heart  every 
time  the  actor's  name  was  mentioned.  She  was 
thankful  to  get  home,  and  lock  herself  in  her  room. 
She  was  in  a  tumult  of  shame,  agitation,  and  an 
exquisite  guilty  joy.  She  partly  undressed,  and 
threw  herself  on  her  bed,  shutting  her  eyes  to  win 
back  the  face  and  voice  that  had  moved  her  to 
the  depths.  What  had  he  done  to  her?  A  few 
hours  before  she  had  never  known  of  his  existence. 
The  merest  accident  had  revealed  it  to  her,  and 
now  he  was  causing  the  blood  to  surge  through  her 
veins,  and  mantle  her  cheeks  with  dishonor.  For 
it  was  dishonor.  Everything  in  her  revolted  at 
such  a  position.  His  preposterous  name  struck 
fiercely  on  her  pride  and  her  sense  of  the  ridiculous 
—  Cyril  Adair!  How  could  any  one,  masquerad- 
ing under  such  an  egregious  alias,  dare  to  give  her 

7.6 


INFATUATION  77 

a  moment's  concern.  She  burst  out  laughing  at 
herself,  a  contemptuous  and  bitter  laugh.  Cyril 
Adair!  No  dazzled  little  housemaid  could  have 
been  sillier  than  she. 

Yet  his  face  haunted  her,  the  tones  of  his  voice, 
that  strange,  smoldering  look  in  his  eyes.  How 
greedily  that  dreadful  woman  had  kissed  him! 
Those  were  no  stage  kisses.  Before  a  thousand 
people  she  had  abandoned  herself  to  his  arms,  and 
fastened  that  painted  mouth  to  his  in  an  ecstasy. 
The  audience  thought  it  was  acting.  Phyllis,  with 
a  keener  perception,  saw  the  truth,  and  it  made  her 
savage  with  jealousy.  That  dreadful  woman  was 
shameless,  crazy,  beside  herself.  She  had  wooed 
him  with  every  fiber  of  her  body,  pressing  his  head 
to  her  bosom,  using  every  artifice  to  inflame  him, 
and  what  had  brought  down  the  thunders  of  the 
house  had  not  been  a  delineation  of  passion,  but 
the  naked  thing  itself. 

It  was  horrible.  Actors  and  actresses  were  hor- 
rible. No  wonder  they  were  despised  even  while 
they  were  run  after.  No  wonder  their  lives  were 
notorious.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  when — ? 
But  she  envied  that  woman.  Yes,  she  envied  that 
woman,  terrible  as  it  was  to  admit  it.  Hated  her, 


78  INFATUATION 

and  envied  her. —  No  she  pitied  her  as  one  of  her 
own  silly,  headlong  sex,  cursed  with  this  need  to 
love.  She  was  no  longer  young;  she  was  thirty 
years  old  if  a  day;  she  was  probably  poor,  disrep- 
utable, with  nothing  in  the  world  but  a  trunk  full 
of  trashy  finery,  and  no  home  but  a  cheap  hotel. 
Love  was  the  only  thing  she  had,  poor  wretch,  the 
only  thing. 

And  Cyril  Adair?  It  was  hard  to  imagine  him 
in  private  life  except  as  Correze.  But,  of  course, 
he  wasn't  Correze  —  that  was  absurd.  Perhaps  he 
would  be  so  changed  that  one  would  scarcely  know 
him  on  the  street.  She  had  heard  of  such  disillu- 
sions —  of  tottering  old  men  playing  boys  —  and 
wasn't  Bernhardt  sixty?  But  a  woman  can  tell,  a 
woman  who  —  who  —  cares.  That  vigorous  man- 
hood was  no  made-up  pretense ;  such  freshness,  such 
warmth,  such  grace,  could  not  be  affected;  he  was 
certainly  not  much  more  than  thirty,  on  the  border 
line  of  youth  and  early-maturity  when  men,  to  her, 
possessed  their  greatest  charm. 

Lying  there,  in  a  swoon  of  shy  delight,  she  al- 
lowed her  fancy  to  fly  away  in  dreams.  Hand  in 
hand,  they  trod  a  fairy-land  of  love  and  rapture. 
She  stole  sentences  from  his  part,  and  made  him 


INFATUATION  79 

repeat  them  to  her  alone  —  avowals,  passionate  and 
tender,  in  all  the  mellow  sweetness  of  the  voice  that 
still  reechoed  in  her  heart.  He  was  Correze,  and 
she,  in  the  madness  of  her  infatuation,  had  forced 
her  way  to  him  and  thrown  herself  humbly  at  his 
feet.  His  love  was  not  for  her;  she  aspired  to  no 
such  heights;  but  she  had  come  to  be  his  little 
slave;  to  follow  him  in  his  wanderings;  to  sleep 
across  his  door,  and  guard  him  while  he  slept.  To 
be  near  him  was  all  she  asked.  His  little  slave, 
who,  when  he  was  dejected  and  weary,  would  nestle 
beside  him,  and  cover  his  hand  with  the  softest 
kisses.  She  wanted  no  reward;  she  would  try  not 
to  be  jealous  of  those  great  ladies,  though  there 
would  be  times  when  she  could  not  hold  back  her 
feelings,  and  his  hand,  as  she  drew  it  across  her 
eyes,  would  be  all  wet  with  tears. 

With  her  maid's  knock  at  the  door  there  came  a 
sudden  revulsion.  Phyllis  called  to  her  to  go  away, 
unwilling  to  be  seen  in  her  defenselessness,  and 
fearful  of  she  knew  not  what.  But  the  spell  was 
broken.  The  bubble  of  that  pretty  fantasy  vanished 
at  one  touch  of  fact.  Harsh  reality  obtruded  itself, 
and  with  it  a  pitiless  self-arraignment.  She  had 
been  swept  off  her  feet  by  a  third-class  actor,  in  a 


8o  INFATUATION 

third-class  play,  full  of  mawkish  sentiment  and  un- 
reality, in  a  third-class  theater  where  they  chewed 
gum,  and  ate  apples  while  they  wept  over  the  hero's 
woes!  A  wave  of  self-disgust  rose  within  her. 
She  felt  soiled,  humiliated.  How  dared  this  cheap, 
showy  creature  reach  out  to  take  such  liberties  with 
a  woman  a  thousand  times  above  him?  A  creature, 
who  in  all  probability  ate  with  his  knife,  carried 
on  low  love  affairs  with  admiring  shop-girls,  and 
practised  his  fascinations  before  a  mirror,  like  a 
trick-monkey!  Pah,  the  thought  of  her  amorous 
imaginings  reddened  her  cheeks,  and  consumed 
her  with  bitterness  and  shame.  Where  was  her 
self-respect,  her  modesty?  If  wishes  could  have 
killed,  there  would  have  been  no  performance  of 
Moths  that  night  at  the  Thalia  Theater. 

At  dinner  she  convulsed  her  father  with  an  ac- 
count of  the  play,  in  which  neither  Adair  nor  the 
audience  were  in  any  way  spared.  In  her  zest 
and  mockery,  it  all  took  on  a  richly  humorous 
aspect,  and  at  times  she  was  interrupted  by  her 
own  silvery  peals  of  laughter.  To  hear  her,  how 
could  any  one  have  guessed  that  she  had  been 
stirred  as  she  had  never  been  stirred  before,  and 


INFATUATION  81 

that  the  screaming  farce  she  described  had  been  in 
reality  the  one  drama  that  had  ever  touched  her? 
Was  it  in  revenge  for  what  she  had  suffered  ?  Was 
it  perversity?  Or  was  it  the  attempt  to  conquer  a 
physical  attraction  so  irresistible  that  it  tormented 
and  terrified  her  even  while  she  fought  it  with  the 
best  of  all  weapons  —  derision  ? 

She  passed  a  wretched  night,  tossing  and  turning 
on  her  bed  in  a  whirl  of  emotions.  She  was 
haunted  by  that  face  which  appeared  to  regard  her 
with  such  reproach.  Why  had  she  betrayed  him,  it 
seemed  to  ask?  The  smoldering  eyes,  compelling 
always,  were  questioning  and  melancholy.  That 
look,  of  such  singular  intensity,  and  with  its  strange 
and  mysterious  appeal  to  some  other  self  of  hers, 
again  asserted  its  resistless  power.  She  felt  her- 
self slipping  back,  in  a  langour  of  tenderness,  to  the 
mood  that  had  shocked  her  so  much  before.  In 
vain  she  repeated  the  saving  words  —  threw  out 
those  little  life-buoys  to  a  swimmer  drowning  in 
unworthy  love  — "  third-class  actor  " — "  matinee 
hero  " — "  shop-girls'  idol." —  The  drowning  swim- 
mer continued  to  drown,  unhelped.  The  life- 
buoys floated  away,  and  disappeared.  Engulfing 


82  INFATUATION 

love,  worthy  or  unworthy,  drew  down  her  spent 
body  to  the  blue  and  coraled  depths,  and  held  her 
there,  fainting  with  delight. 

In  our  secret  hearts,  who  has  not,  at  some  time 
or  other,  felt  an  unreasoning  desire  for  one  all  un- 
known. Is  love,  indeed  —  true  love,  anything  else  ? 
Glamour  and  idealization  —  we  would  not  go  far 
without  either,  and  many,  hand  in  hand,  have  trod 
the  long  path  to  the  grave,  and  died  happy  with 
their  illusions.  Nature,  to  screen  her  coarser  in- 
tent, fools  us,  little  children  that  we  are,  with  these 
pretty  and  poetic  artifices.  May  it  always  be  so, 
for  God  knows,  it  is  an  ugly  world,  and  it  does  not 
do  to  peer  too  curiously  behind  the  scenes. 

There  was  a  Mrs.  Beekman  that  Phyllis  knew, 
the  widow  of  a  distinguished  lawyer,  left  with  noth- 
ing, who  had  bravely  set  herself  to  earn  her  living 
as  a  milliner.  It  was  to  the  credit  of  Carthage  that 
Mrs.  Beekman's  altered  fortunes  had  not  impaired 
its  regard  for  her.  She  kept  her  friends  in  spite 
of  the  "  Hortense  "  over  her  shop,  and  a  window 
full  of  home-made  hats,  which,  of  themselves, 
would  have  amply  justified  ostracism.  It  was  no 
new  thing  for  Mrs.  Beekman  to  act  as  chaperon, 


INFATUATION  83 

and  repay,  in  this  small  measure,  many  kindnesses 
that  verged  on  charity.  So  she  was  not  surprised, 
though  much  pleased  and  excited,  when  Phyllis  tele- 
phoned, and  asked  her  to  go  with  her  to  the  theater. 
"  I  liked  the  play  so  much  I  want  to  see  it  again," 
trickled  that  tiny  voice  into  her  ear,  "  and  though 
it's  at  that  awful  Thalia  Theater,  we  can  sit  in  a 
box,  and  be  quite  safe  and  comfortable. —  May  I 
call  for  you  a  little  after  eight,  dear?  " 

Mrs.  Beekman,  who  was  an  indefatigable  pleas- 
ure-seeker, consented  with  effusiveness.  Phyllis 
was  a  darling  to  have  thought  of  her.  One  of  her 
girls  had  told  her  the  play  was  splendid,  and  that 
the  star  —  oh,  what  didn't  she  say  about  the  star! 
Was  Phyllis  crazy  about  him,  too?  Hee,  hee,  all 
alike  under  their  skins,  as  Kipling  said!  Not  that 
she  liked  Kipling  —  he  was  so  unrefined  —  but 
Miss  Britt  (you  know  Miss  Britt,  the  silly  one, 
with  poodle  eyes,  and  a  poodle-fool  if  ever  there 
was  one)  Miss  Britt  raved  for  hours  about  his 
"  somber  beauty."  Wasn't  it  killing !  If  Adair 
wanted  to,  he  could  leave  town  with  two  box-cars 
of  conquests!  My,  the  milliners  wouldn't  have  a 
girl  left,  and  the  ice-cream  parlors  would  all  have 
to  shut. —  At  eight,  dear?  —  And  dress  quietly  so 


84  INFATUATION 

as  not  to  attract  attention?     Hee,  hee,  it  was  quite 
a  lark,  wasn't  it? 

Sitting  in  the  same  box,  on  the  same  chair,  but 
with  a  feeling  as  though  years  had  elapsed  since  she 
had  last  been  there,  Phyllis  again  saw  the  curtain 
rise  on  Moths.  The  impulse  that  had  brought 
her,  the  mad  desire  to  see  the  man  who  had  tor- 
tured her  so  cruelly,  had  changed  to  a  cold  crit- 
ical mood,  to  a  disdain  so  comprehensive  that  it 
included  herself  no  less  than  Adair.  Dispassionate 
and  contemptuous,  it  cost  her  no  effort  to  steel 
herself  against  his  first  appearance.  His  mouth  was 
undeniably  rather  coarse;  she  detected  a  self-com- 
placency beneath  his  Correze  that  his  acting  failed  to 
hide ;  she  saw  his  glance  seek  the  back-benches  with 
a  satisfaction  at  finding  them  filled,  that  struck  her 
as  somehow  greedy  and  tradesmanlike.  What  a 
disgusting  business  it  was  to  posture  and  rant,  and 
choke  back  sham  tears,  and  mimic  the  sacredest 
things  in  life  —  and  watch  back-benches  with  an 
eye  to  the  evening's  profits!  The  wretchedest  la- 
borer, with  his  pick  and  shovel,  was  more  of  a  man. 
At  any  rate  he  did  something  that  was  dignified, 
that  was  useful  and  wanted.  He  was  not  framed 


INFATUATION  85 

in  cardboard;  there  was  no  row  of  lights  at  his 
honest,  muddy  feet ;  his  loving  was  a  private  matter, 
and  when  he  kissed  he  meant  it. —  How  fortunate 
it  was  that  she  had  come!  How  unerring  the  in- 
stinct that  had  brought  her  back  to  be  cured! 

But  as  the  play  proceeded  such  reflections  were 
forgotten  in  the  intensity  of  her  absorption.  Again 
she  was  leaning  forward  with  parted  lips;  rapt, 
over-borne,  lost  to  everything,  and  pale  with  an  in- 
describable tumult  of  emotion.  She  was  conscious 
of  no  audience;  of  naught  save  the  man  who  held 
her  captive  with  a  power  so  absolute  and  irresisti- 
ble that  birth,  training,  pride,  weighed  as  nothing 
in  the  balance.  His  voice  pierced  her  heart;  his 
eyes  seemed  to  draw  the  soul  from  her  body;  she 
trembled  at  her  own  helplessness,  though  the  real- 
ization of  it  was  also  a  strange  and  intoxicating 
pleasure. 

But  intermingled  with  that  pleasure,  darting 
through  it  like  a  tongue  of  flame,  was  a  jealousy  of 
Miss  de  Vere  that  not  even  the  bitterest  of  con- 
tempt could  allay.  Phyllis  felt  to  the  full  the  deg- 
radation of  being  jealous  of  any  one  bearing  so 
preposterous  a  name.  Lydia  de  Vere!  Her  lips 
curled  at  herself.  Oh,  that  shoddy  affectation  of 


86  INFATUATION 

aristocracy!  Lydia  de  Vere!  And  that  in  a  ten- 
twenty-thirty  cent  theater,  and  hardly  clothed  above 
the  waist;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  her  painted  face, 
her  dyed  hair,  and  all  of  her  thirty  years,  with 
shoulders  and  breast  that  a  duchess  might  have  en- 
vied, she  was  handsome  in  her  common,  flam- 
boyant, chorus-girl  way,  with  the  meaningless  good 
looks  that  one  associates  with  tights  and  gilt  spears. 
Her  acting  was  stilted  and  false;  her  fine  ladyism 
an  impossible  assumption;  she  railed  at  the  Prince 
in  the  accents  of  a  cook  giving  notice.  But  her 
love  for  Correze  taxed  no  histrionic  powers.  It 
was  vehement  and  real,  as  were  the  kisses  she  be- 
stowed so  freely,  and  the  caresses  she  lingered  over 
with  voluptuous  satisfaction.  Beneath  the  drama 
of  fictitious  personages  was  another  of  flesh  and 
blood,  like  a  splash  of  scarlet  on  a  printed  page. 

What  fury  and  anguish  lay  pent  up  in  one  girlish 
bosom!  What  a  suffocating  sense  of  defeat,  bit- 
terness and  shame !  —  To  burn  with  jealousy  of  such 
a  woman  was  more  lowering  than  to  —  No,  she 
would  not  admit  that  word  to  herself.  It  was  folly, 
infatuation,  madness  —  but  not  love.  It  would 
pass  with  the  swiftness  it  had  come,  leaving  her  in 
wonder  at  herself,  though  the  scar  would  remain 


INFATUATION  87 

for  many  a  long  day.  This  man  was  robbing  her 
of  something  that  never  perhaps  could  be  altogether 
replaced.  How  wicked  it  was,  how  unjust —  she 
who  had  done  nothing  to  tempt  the  lightning! 
She  hated  him  for  it;  she  clenched  her  teeth  and 
defied  him ;  she  understood  now  what  she  had  read 
in  books  that  there  are  men  the  mind  scorns  even 
while  the  body  surrenders.  But  she  was  made  of 
stronger  stuff;  she  had  pride  and  courage;  her  pearls 
were  not  for  swine  to  trample  on.  She  would 
put  him  out  of  her  head  for  ever. 

It  was  terrible  how  he  always  got  back  again. 
There  were  tones  in  his  voice  that  melted  every 
resolution.  If  ever  laughter  was  music,  it  was 
his,  and  the  contagion  of  it  swept  the  house;  and 
his  face,  though  not  handsome  in  the  accepted  sense, 
was  striking  in  the  effect  it  gave  of  an  untamed, 
extraordinary  and  powerful  nature,  only  half  re- 
vealed. What  was  pride  or  courage  or  anything? 
What  availed  the  hatred  of  that  hotly-beating  little 
heart?  Had  he  not  but  to  look  her  way  to  make 
it  his  own?  Had. he  crushed  it  in  his  hand,  would 
it  not  have  died  of  joy?  Hatred,  resentment,  out- 
raged self-respect  —  words,  nothing  but  words. 


88  INFATUATION 

As  the  house  streamed  out  she  waited  in  dread 
for  Mrs.  Beekman's  criticism.  However  desper- 
ately she  might  belittle  Adair  to  herself,  Phyllis 
shrank  from  hearing  condemnation  on  other  lips. 
The  pride  that  had  failed  so  utterly  to  defend  her, 
had  taken  sides  with  the  enemy,  devotedly,  pas- 
sionately. Judge  of  her  surprise,  then,  her  pleas- 
ure and  relief,  when  Mrs.  Beekman  said  to  her 
solemnly :  "  Phyllis,  that  man's  a  genius !  He's 
perfectly  splendid !  "  Misunderstanding  her  com- 
panion's silence,  and  thinking  it  implied  dissent, 
she  went  on  with  a  note  of  argument  in  her  voice. 
"  Of  course  one  can  feel  somehow  that  he  has  had 
no  advantages  —  that  he  has  probably  never  been 
within  ten  miles  of  the  people  he  is  trying  to  repre- 
sent—  (do  you  remember  his  shaking  hands  with 
his  gloves  on?)  — but  just  the  same  he  has  a  won- 
derful and  magnificent  talent,  and  we'll  hear  of  him 
as  surely  as  the  world  heard  of  Henry  Irving,  or 
Booth,  or  Bernhardt.  Truly,  Phyllis,  I  believe  the 
day  will  come  when  we'll  be  bragging  of  having 
admired  Adair  before  he  was  famous;  that  is,  if 
you  feel  like  me  about  it,"  she  added  doubtfully. 
"  I  do,  I  do !  "  cried  Phyllis.  "  I've  never  seen 
anybody  on  the  stage  I've  liked  as  much." 


INFATUATION  89 

"  Well,  I  have,"  said  Mrs.  Beekman  candidly. 
"  He  certainly  suffered  from  being  with  all  those 
idiots,  and  I  don't  like  that  fling-ding  walk  of  his. 
—  I  guess  he's  about  five  years  short  of  the  win- 
ning-post, but  we'll  see  him  romp  in  as  sure  as 
my  name's  Emma  Beekman." 

"  Romping  in  "  jarred  somewhat  on  Phyllis'  ear, 
but  all  the  same  Mrs.  Beekman's  admiration  was 
very  sweet  to  her,  and  in  a  queer  sort  of  way  was 
comforting  and  reassuring.  There  was  dignity  in 
idolizing  a  genius;  it  raised  her  in  her  own  good 
opinion. 

She  forgot  the  apples  and  the  chewing-gum; 
she  forgot  even  Miss  de  Vere;  a  mantle  of  un- 
reasoning happiness  enveloped  her,  and  with  it 
came  a  gush  of  affection  for  Mrs.  Beekman  that 
quite  astonished  the  latter.  She  held  her  hand  in 
the  dark,  and  tried,  with  many  unseen  blushes,  to 
keep  the  one  subject  uppermost.  To  lie  back  in 
the  carriage  and  hear  Adair  praised,  thrilled  her 
with  delicious  sensations.  She  was  insatiable,  and 
kept  the  milliner  repeating  "  genius,  genius,  gen- 
ius," like  a  parrot.  It  cost  her  an  order  for  a 
twenty  dollar  hat,  but  what  did  she  care?  She 
would  have  given  the  clothes  off  her  back  in  the 


9o  INFATUATION 

extravagance  of  her  desire.  Fortunately  Mrs. 
Beekman  was  nothing  loath,  and  would  have  chat- 
tered for  ever  on  this  entrancing  topic.  "  I  guess 
we're  as  bad  as  my  girls,"  she  said,  with  her  good- 
natured  laugh,  "and  he  could  put  us  both  in  the 
box-car,  too,  if  he  had  the  mind." 

"  I  shouldn't  care  if  I  was  the  only  one,"  returned 
Phyllis  gaily,  "  and  anyway,  I've  always  loved 
traveling ! " 

"  It  would  be  to  the  devil,"  said  Mrs.  Beekman 
half-seriously.  "  That's  where  such  men  come 
from,  and  that's  where  they  go  back  —  and  if  you 
could  follow  round  the  circle,  I  guess  you'd  find  it 
mile-stoned  with  silly  girls." 

"  Oh,  if  I  went,  I  would  stay  to  the  end,"  cried 
Phyllis.  "  No  putting  me  off  at  a  way-station. 
I'd  take  a  through  ticket." 

"And  get  there  alone,"  put  in  Mrs.  Beekman. 
"  Men  like  that  don't  go  far  with  any  girl.  They 
are  a  power  for  mischief,  and  they  weren't  much 
wrong  in  the  old  days  to  run  them  out  of  town  — 
vagabonds  and  strolling  players,  you  know.  I 
guess  in  those  times  they  used  to  take  chickens,  too, 
and  anything  portable.  A  bad  lot,  my  dear,  and 
they  aren't  any  better  to-day." 


INFATUATION  91 

This  was  a  poor  return  for  a  twenty-dollar  hat, 
and  without  knowing  exactly  why,  it  made  Phyllis 
exceedingly  miserable.  She  felt  a  diminishing  af- 
fection for  Mrs.  Beekman ;  and  the  world  altogether 
suddenly  took  on  a  cold  and  dismal  aspect.  Her 
spirits  were  not  revived  by  finding  her  father  sit- 
ting up  for  her. 

"What  was  the  play?"  he  asked,  taking  her 
wraps. 

"Moths,  Papa." 

"What?     Twice?" 

"  Oh,  I  thought  it  would  amuse  me  to  see  it 
again,  and  besides,  Mrs.  Beekman  preferred  it  to 
anything  else  in  town,  and  I  really  went  for  her 
sake,  you  know.  It's  a  charity  to  take  her  out 
sometimes;  her  life  is  so  monotonous,  and  one  feels 
so  sorry  for  her." 

Mr.  Ladd  waited,  smiling  in  advance,  for  another 
humorous  take-off  of  the  piece.  But  there  was  no 
fun  in  Phyllis  that  night.  She  drank  a  glass  of 
water,  kissed  him  good  night,  and  went  silently  up 
to  bed. 

"  She  doesn't  seem  very  well,"  he  thought,  with  a 
shade  of  concern,  and  remembered  that  she  had 
been  pale  and  tired  for  some  days  past.  "If  she 


92  INFATUATION 

doesn't  pick  up  in  a  day  or  two,  I  believe  I'll  get 
the  doctor." 

Had  he  seen  her  an  hour  later,  his  misgivings 
would  have  increased.  Kneeling  beside  her  bed, 
her  face  crushed  in  the  coverlet,  she  was  weeping 
softly  and  heart-brokenly  to  herself. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

FIDAY,  the  day  that  followed,  was  memo- 
•able  to  her  for  its  decisiveness  and  remorse. 
She  took  a  long  ride,  and  between  canters, 
busied  her  head  with  plans  of  escape.  Washing- 
ton, Florida,  Europe  —  it  mattered  little  where  — 
so  long  as  she  got  away  at  once.  She  looked  at 
herself  dispassionately,  and  the  more  she  looked 
the  more  utterly  despicable  did  she  seem.  She 
was  undoubtedly  in  love  with  this  cheap,  showy 
actor —  (somehow  in  the  sunshine  his  genius  had 
withered,  and  he  seemed  to  share  the  general  tawdri- 
ness  of  gum  and  apples  and  shop-boy  sentiment) 
—  crazily  in  love,  infatuated;  and  to  refuse  to  ad- 
mit it  was  but  to  hide  her  head  in  the  sand,  like  an 
ostrich. 

The  comparison  was  not  a  pretty  one,  but  then 
she  was  not  looking  for  pretty  comparisons.  In 
fact,  as  far  as  her  feelings  for  Adair  were  concerned, 
she  was  eager  to  find  words  that  could  make  her 

93 


94  INFATUATION 

wince.  She  said  them  out  loud,  exulting  in  their 
brutality;  gross  words,  picked  up  she  hardly  knew 
where,  and  put  out  of  mind  as  unclean  and  horri- 
ble. To  use  them  now  was  a  form  of  self-flagella- 
tion, and  she  laid  on  the  whip  with  a  will.  It  was 
good  for  a  little  fool,  she  said  viciously.  Lash! 
lash!  It  would  keep  her  out  of  mischief.  Lash! 
lash!  Let  her  understand  once  for  all  what  it 
really  meant,  even  if  the  skin  curled  off  her  back. 

On  her  return  home  she  stopped  at  the  telegraph- 
office  to  carry  out  her  intention  of  volunteering  a 
visit  to  Aunt  Sarah's.  Night  or  day,  in  season  or 
out,  there  she  always  had  a  refuge.  If  blood  in 
Aunt  Sarah's  case,  was  not  thicker  than  water,  there 
was  the  more  robust  bond  of  hard  cash  always  to  be 
relied  upon.  A  niece  who  descended  in  a  shower 
of  gold  could  count  with  confidence  on  the  bread 
and  salt  of  hospitality,  and  the  sincerest  of  welcom- 
ing kisses.  There  is  something  to  be  said  for 
people  you  can  count  on  with  confidence.  An  affec- 
tionate, love-you-like-a-daughter  aunt  might  have 
made  excuses.  A  money-loving,  pleasure-loving, 
wholly  selfish  aunt,  living  very  much  above  her 
income,  was  one  of  the  certainties  of  life. 

But  as  she  reined  in  her  horse,  and  the  groom 


INFATUATION  95 

ran  to  give  her  his  hand  to  dismount,  she  wondered, 
after  all,  whether  she  would  telegraph.  The 
flagellation  had  been  very  successful ;  the  September 
sunshine  had  killed  the  pitiful  glimmer  of  the  foot- 
lights; the  crisp  invigorating  air  had  brought  san- 
ity with  every  breath.  No,  indeed,  she  would  not 
telegraph,  she  was  not  half  the  fool  she  hadjthought 
herself;  it  was  a  girlish  weakness  to  exaggerate 
everything  —  infatuation  included.  She  would 
telephone  to  that  nice  New  Yorker  instead  and 
invite  him  to  tea.  That  oldish  man  with  the  charm- 
ing distinction  and  courtesy,  who  had  shown  symp- 
toms of  infatuation,  too. —  Yes,  a  good  whipping 
to  be  followed  by  two  hours  of  an  excessively  de- 
voted Mr.  Van  Suydam,  and  perhaps  a  boy-and- 
girl-evening  later  with  the  carpet  up  —  and  why 
should  anybody  be  scared  of  anything? 

So  the  telegram  was  not  sent;  and  a  young  lady, 
very  much  restored,  and  looking  adorably  fresh  and 
pretty  on  her  Kentucky  mare,  came  galloping  up 
Chestnut  Avenue  in  excellent  spirits  and  appetite. 

As  for  Mr.  Van  Suydam  —  he  threw  over  a  big 
reception  to  come,  and  was  so  agreeable  and  eager, 
in  such  a  sweet,  restrained,  smiling  way,  that  he 
was  allowed  to  hold  a  little  hand  a  long,  long  while, 


96  INFATUATION 

and  murmur  a  whole  heartful  of  tender  things  that 
amounted  virtually  to  a  declaration  —  which  was 
cruel  of  Phyllis,  not  to  say  unladylike  and  shocking ; 
for  with  half-shut  eyes  she  tried  to  imagine  it  was 
quite  another  man  who  was  wooing  her,  and  aban- 
doned herself  to  the  fiction  with  a  waywardness 
that  was  inexcusable.  But  however  unjust  it  was 
towards  Mr.  Van  Suydam,  who  was  an  honorable 
man,  and  meant  what  he  said,  and  was  naturally 
much  elated  —  his  suit  did  Phyllis  good,  and  even 
as  dummy  for  another,  an  inevitable  comparison 
would  insist  upon  obtruding  itself.  Caste  is  very 
strong;  it  is  difficult  to  associate  good-breeding, 
honor  and  distinction  with  a  ten-twenty-thirty  cent 
star;  and  though  Mr.  Van  Suydam^  was  nothing 
to  Phyllis  personally  she  could  not  help  realizing 
the  high  value  she  set  on  the  qualities  he  exempli- 
fied —  so  high,  indeed,  that  it  began  to  seem  impos- 
sible for  her  to  care  seriously  for  any  man  without 
them. 

An  evening  with  the  sparrows  rounded  out  that 
day  of  good  resolves  and  healthy  common  sense. 
She  danced  with  a  zest  that  no  genuinely-infatuated 
person  could  have  felt,  and  told  ghost  stories  after- 
wards before  the  fire,  and  listened  to  others  being 


INFATUATION  97 

told,  with  shudders  of  unaffected  enjoyment. 
"  And  my  dear,  when  she  looked  at  that  man  again, 
she  saw  that  his  throat  was  cut  from  ear  to  ear!  " 
—  It  was  a  jolly  evening,  innocently  hilarious,  and 
as  wholesome  as  an  ocean  breeze.  Morbidity  and 
introspection  could  not  persist  in  an  atmosphere  so 
genially  youthful.  Phyllis  never  thought  once  of 
Cyril  Adair,  and  flirted  outrageously  with  Sam 
Hargreaves,  convulsing  the  sparrows  by  sharing  his 
ice-cream  spoon.  Ordinarily  quiet  and  backward, 
and  even  a  little  disdainful,  she  showed  herself  in 
wild  spirits  that  night,  and  her  audacity,  humor 
and  gaiety  were  irresistible. 

It  was  very  discouraging,  after  a  night's  sleep, 
as  untroubled  as  a  babe's,  to  awaken  again  with  a 
dull  ache  within  her,  and  to  discover,  with  hope- 
less despondency,  that  she  was  not  cured  at  all. 
Alas  for  the  girlish  armor  she  had  striven  so  hard 
to  put  about  her  —  Mr.  Van  Suydam,  Sam  Har- 
greaves, the  bitter,  ugly  things  she  had  said  to  her- 
self, the  defiant  resolutions.  Where  was  that  pride 
she  had  stung  to  fury?  Where  was  that  sense  of 
caste  which  yesterday  had  seemed  so  peremp- 
tory? 


98  INFATUATION 

The  morning  found  her  bereft  of  everything, 
wretched,  defenseless,  with  no  longer  even  the  will 
to  fly.  She  was  under  the  spell  once  more,  and 
powerless  to  throw  it  off.  Her  whole  preposses- 
sion was  to  see  Adair  again,  cost  what  it  might. 
Nothing  else  mattered.  She  was  mad,  infatuated, 
contemptible  to  herself  —  but  she  could  only  be 
appeased  by  the  sight  of  him.  Yet  how  was  it 
possible?  How  could  she  contrive  it?  She  could 
not  well  ask  Mrs.  Beekman  a  second  time.  That 
any  one  should  suspect  her  secret  was  intolerable  — 
she  would  rather  have  died.  The  circle  of  her  girl 
friends  was  too  small  to  arrange  another  theater- 
party  without  submitting  herself  to  unbearable  in- 
nuendoes and  home-thrusts.  Those  young  women 
had  a  preternatural  instinct  for  detecting  the  dawn 
of  love.  In  other  things  they  might  be  stupid  and 
blind,  but  for  this  they  were  as  watchful  as  hawks, 
and  as  merciless  as  only  twenty  can  be.  What  of 
her  admirers  then  —  Mr.  Van  Suydam,  say,  or 
good-natured,  fat  Sam?  But  they  could  be  very 
sharp,  too —  and  besides,  she  could  not  be  so 
forward  as  to  seek  an  invitation.  Young  girls  in 
Carthage  had  a  great  deal  of  liberty  —  but  it  had 
its  limits.  Perhaps  she  could  take  one  of  the  house- 


INFATUATION  99 

B 

maids  with  her  to  the  matinee  —  it  was  Saturday 
and  the  piece  was  given  twice.  But  this  would  ap- 
pear queer,  especially  if  it  reached  her  father. 

There  seemed  nothing  for  it  but  to  dress  very 
plainly  and  go  by  herself.  It  was  something  to 
remember  that  matinees  practically  existed  for 
women  only  —  though  attending  one  alone  was  un- 
heard of  in  Phyllis'  set.  It  was  less  a  social  law 
than  a  sort  of  fact.  Girls  went  to  matinees  in  pairs 
apparently  —  always  had  —  and  apparently  always 
would.  "  Who  did  you  go  with,  my  dear  ?  "  was 
an  inevitable  question.  Well,  if  necessary,  one 
could  meet  that  with  a  fib;  and  if  one  were  found 
out,  it  was  no  great  crime  after  all  —  but  rather 
a  mild  escapade  that  a  blush  could  condone.  Of 
course  a  box  was  out  of  the  question.  She  could 
not  sit  solitary  in  a  box  for  the  whole  house  to  gape 
at.  But  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  her  buying 
two  orchestra  seats,  so  that  any  one  recognizing 
her  might  draw  a  natural  deduction.  An  adjoin- 
ing empty  seat  was  almost  a  chaperon,  besides 
permitting  her  to  widen  her  distance  from  an  un- 
pleasant neighbor.  If  there  should  be  two  unpleas- 
ant neighbors,  she  could  always  rise  and  walk  out. 

At  two  she  was  passing  the  Thalia  Theater  with 


ioo  INFATUATION 

an  air  of  well-feigned  unconcern,  though  her  steps 
grew  slower,  and  she  stole  quick  frightened 
glances  at  the  bustling  entrance.  She  felt  the  need 
of  such  a  preliminary  survey  before  she  could 
screw  her  courage  up  to  the  point  of  joining  the 
in-going  throng,  who  by  daylight  looked  so  depres- 
singly  dingy  and  common  that  she  was  fairly 
daunted  by  the  sight  of  them.  Even  in  the  plainest 
clothes  she  possessed,  she  felt  that  she  would  be 
noticeable  among  people  like  that,  and  this  was 
brought  home  to  her  the  more  by  the  impudent 
stare  of  several  young  men,  who  parted,  none  too 
politely,  for  her  to  pass.  They  knew  she  had  no 
business  there  alone;  that  she  belonged  to  another 
world;  and  .there  was  speculation,  as  well  as  for- 
ward admiration,  in  the  looks  they  cast  at  her. 
She  felt  they  had  somehow  divined  her  hesitating 
purpose,  and  were  grinning  at  her  humiliation. 
She  quickened  her  pace,  and  got  by  with  fiercely 
flaming  cheeks,  and  a  desolating  sense  of  failure. 

But  the  desire  was  so  overmastering  that  after 
a  few  minutes  she  turned,  and  again  coerced  her 
reluctant  feet.  Impudent  young  men  could  do  her 
no  harm.  What  a  coward  she  had  been  to  let  them 
disconcert  her.  She  would  put  down  her  sixty 


INFATUATION  101 

cents,  and  enter  boldly,  telling  herself  she  was  a 
factory  girl,  whose  young  man  happened  to  be  late. 
She  might  even  leave  the  second  ticket  at  the  box- 
office  with  the  phantom's  name  on  it  —  though  no, 
that  would  mean  too  much  talking,  and  she  dis- 
trusted her  voice.  But,  anyhow,  nothing  was  go- 
ing to  keep  her  out  of  the  theater.  Didn't  soldiers 
walk  up  to  breastworks,  bristling  with  guns  and 
cannons  —  whole  rows  of  them,  with  probably  a 
very  similar  shakiness  in  their  legs?  She  would 
advance  on  that  box-office  in  the  same  spirit  — 
right,  left,  right,  left  —  rubadub,  rubadub  —  with 
sixty  cents  in  her  hot  little  hand. 

She  had  scarcely  reached  the  outskirts  of  the 
crowd  when  she  suddenly  heard  her  name  called 
aloud.  It  went  through  her  like  a  knife,  and  she 
hardly  dared  turn  her  guilty  head.  There,  beside 
the  curb,  in  a  big  automobile,  was  Mr.  Van  Suydam, 
with  a  party  of  women  in  veils  and  furs,  all  sig- 
naling to  her.  There  ensued  an  animated  conver- 
sation. Where  was  she  going?  Why  shouldn't 
she  jump  in  with  them?  Mr.  Van  Suydam  would 
sit  on  the  floor  of  the  tonneau,  and  give  her  his 
place.  They  were  so  insistent  that  it  was  not  easy 
to  refuse.  She  fibbed  manfully,  and  invented 


102  INFATUATION 

pressing  engagements.  ...  At  last  they  rolled 
off,  waving  their  hands.  .  .  . 

But  this  chance  meeting  cost  her  all  the  poor 
courage  she  possessed.  Why,  she  could  not  explain 
to  herself  —  but  it  was  gone,  and  there  was  nothing 
for  it  but  to  hasten  away.  She  felt  she  had  escaped 
detection  by  a  hair;  the  precious  matinee  was  lost; 
her  eyes  smarted  with  disappointment  and  chagrin. 
'She  rankled  with  the  injustice  of  it,  too  —  the  un- 
merited and  unsought  disaster  that  this  infatuation 
really  was.  She  was  so  wholly  innocent  of  any 
blame.  She  had  done  nothing  —  absolutely  noth- 
ing—  to  incur  it.  If  you  caught  measles  or  small- 
pox every  one  was  sorry  for  you ;  it  was  admittedly 
a  misfortune  for  which  you  were  in  no  way  re- 
sponsible. But  if  you  caught  love  (she  smiled 
at  her  own  phrase),  it  was  an  unspeakable  disgrace! 
Yet  what  was  the  difference?  Did  it  not  lie  out- 
side one's  self?  How  unjust  it  was,  then,  to  make 
a  criminal  of  a  woman  for  what  was  beyond  her 
power  to  control;  and  the  exasperating  part  was 
that  she  felt  a  criminal  to  herself! 

Her  heart  was  heavy  with  shame.  One  instinct 
made  her  love  unreasonably;  another  instinct  ar- 
rogated the  right  to  criticize  with  unsparing 


INFATUATION  103 

venom.  What  a  contradiction!  What  a  cruel 
heritage  from  all  those  thousands  of  dead  people 
who  had  gone  to  make  her  body  and  her  mind 
with  odds  and  ends  of  themselves!  She  had  done 
no  harm,  yet  some  blind,  unknown,  malignant  force 
was  grinding  her  under  its  heel.  She  understood 
now  why  old-fashioned  people  believed  so  implic- 
itly in  the  devil.  It  was  their  crude  explanation  of 
the  unexplainable. 

She  locked  herself  in  her  room,  and  impelled  by 
a  thought  that  had  been  dancing  dizzily  in  her 
head,  opened  her  desk,  and  drew  out  a  sheet  of 
note-paper.  She  managed  to  write :  "  Dear  Mr. 
Adair " ;  and  then,  blushing  crimson,  covered  her 
face  with  her  hands,  and  began  to  tremble  with  an 
uncontrollable  emotion.  To  continue  that  letter  — 
to  send  it  —  was  to  outrage  every  feeling  of  mod- 
esty within  her.  Under  the  circumstances  any  let- 
ter, however  cold  or  conventional,  was  an  avowal. 
She  might  almost  as  well  write  "  je  t' adore  "  under 
her  photograph,  and  leave  it  at  the  stage-door. 
But  that  blind,  unknown,  malignant  force,  after  a 
moment  of  respite,  again  drove  her  on.  She  might 
shiver  and  blush,  but  the  compulsion  of  it  was  like 
iron,  and  she  had  to  obey. 


104  INFATUATION 

"  Dear  Mr.  Adair,"  she  wrote,  "  I  have  seen 
Moths  twice,  and  may  I,  a  mere  member  of  the 
public,  and  altogether  unknown  to  you,  take  the 
great  liberty  of  expressing  my  admiration  of  your 
wonderful  performance  ? "  She  stopped  at  the 
last  word,  and  debated  it  over  with  herself  —  quite 
coolly,  considering  the  throes  she  had  been  in  a 
minute  before.  No,  "  performance  "  would  not  do. 
Bears  performed;  so  did  acrobats;  it  was  not  the 
right  word  at  all. —  She  took  another  sheet  of  pa- 
per, and  began  again :  "  Dear  Mr.  Adair :  I  have 
seen  Moths  twice,  and  may  I,  a  mere  member  of 
the  public,  and  altogether  unknown  to  you,  take 
the  great  liberty  of  expressing  my  admiration  of 
your  powerful  portrayal  of  a  noble  nature  strug- 
gling against  an  illicit  passion?  Nothing  I  have 
ever  seen  on  the  stage  has  moved  me  so  deeply,  and 
though  praise  from  an  absolute  stranger  may  seem 
little  in  your  eyes,  I  can  not  resist  the  impulse  that 
makes  me  write.  Trusting  you  will  receive  this 
in  the  spirit  that  prompts  it,  believe  me,  in  sincere 
homage,  Phyllis  Ladd." 

She  read  it,  and  re-read  it  till  the  words  lost  all 
meaning.  What  would  he  think  of  it?  What 
sort  of  person  would  it  conjure  up  to  him?  The 


INFATUATION  105 

hand,  and  the  paper,  and  the  engraved  address  all 
denoted  refinement  and  good  taste.  It  would  be 
quite  evident  to  him  that  she  was  a  lady,  with  a 
social  position  of  the  best  —  that  is,  if  he  knew 
what  Chestnut  Avenue  meant  in  Carthage,  and  es- 
pecially such  a  number  as  214.  But  there  was  noth^ 
ing  to  show  that  she  was  young,  or  unmarried  —  or 
—  or  —  good-looking.  The  letter  might  just  as 
well  have  been  written  by  a  matron  of  fifty.  If 
only  she  could  have  added  "  aged  twenty-one,  and 
generally  considered  a  very  pretty  woman."  She 
would  have  liked  him  to  know  that,  even  if  she 
were  never  to  see  him  again;  would  have  liked 
to  tantalize  his  curiosity  in  regard  to  the  unknown 
Phyllis  Ladd  whose  name  was  signed  at  the  end. — 
Though  he  probably  received  bushels  of  notes.  All 
actors  were  said  to.  And  being  a  man  he  would 
probably  like  some  of  the  warmer  ones  better  — 
those  from  frankly  adoring  shop-girls,  hampered 
neither  by  social  position  nor  backwardness.  Hers 
would  be  pushed  to  one  side,  and  never  thought  of 
again.  Oh,  the  little  fool  she  was  to  send  it! 
What  could  come  of  it  but  shame,  and  good 
Heavens,  hadn't  she  had  enough  of  that  already? 
But  undeterred,  and  wilful  in  spite  of  everything, 


106  INFATUATION 

she  addressed  an  envelope,  folded  her  letter  inside 
it,  and  went  out  to  drop  it  herself  into  the  box.  As 
it  slipped  from  her  fingers  she  felt  an  intense 
pleasure  in  her  daring.  It  was  only  a  coward  who 
took  no  risks.  There  was  her  letter  in  the  box 
gone  beyond  retaking.  For  better  or  worse,  for 
good  or  evil,  it  had  started  on  its  road,  and  let 
come  what  might. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  next  morning,  towards  noon,  Cyril 
Adair  was  lounging  over  the  bar  of  the 
Good  Fellows'  Grotto,  with  one  well-shod 
foot  perched  on  the  metal  rest  below.  Before  him 
was  a  Martini  cocktail,  and  the  admiring,  deferen- 
tial face  of  Larry,  the  bar-keeper.  Adair  stood  the 
scrutiny  of  daylight  better  than  most  actors.  Late 
hours,  dissipation  and  grease-paint  had  not  im- 
paired a  fine  and  ruddy  skin  that  the  morning  razor 
left  as  fresh  as  a  boy's.  His  brown  eyes  were  clear, 
and  there  was  about  him  an  air  of  unassailable 
health  that  was  enhanced  by  broad  shoulders,  a  neck 
as  firm  as  any  ever  cut  from  Greek  marble,  and  a 
finely-swelling  chest  —  the  physique,  in  fact,  of 
what  he  had  some  pretensions  to  be  —  a  good,  wel- 
ter-weight boxer.  His  skill  in  this  direction  was 
well  known,  and  his  readiness  when  tipsy  to  ex- 
ercise it  on  any  one  unfortunate  enough  to  offend 
him,  was  one  of  the  scandals  of  his  stormy  and 

107 


io8  INFATUATION 

scandalous  life.  His  engagements,  nine  times  out 
of  ten,  had  the  knack  of  ending  in  the  police 
court,  with  raw  beefsteak  for  the  plaintiff's  eye, 
and  the  option  of  "  seven  day's  hard  "  for  the  un- 
contrite  defendant.  Even  when  stark  sober  —  and 
to  do  him  justice  he  drank  only  in  fits  and  starts, 
with  long  intermissions  between  —  there  was  some- 
thing subtly  formidable  in  the  man,  and  people 
instinctively  made  way  for  him,  and  treated  him 
with  a  respect  verging  on  fear. 

He  was  over-dressed  in  what  was  the  last  ac- 
centuation of  the  prevailing  fashion  —  with  far  too 
much  braided  cuff,  with  far  too  startling  a  waist- 
coat, with  far  too  extravagant  a  tie  and  pin  —  and 
worse  than  anything,  wore  them  all  with  assertive- 
ness  and  self-complacency.  Though  his  manners 
were  good  (when  he  liked,)  and  his  address  agree- 
able, and  even  ingratiating,  he  was  too  showy,  too 
self-satisfied,  too  elaborately  at  ease,  and  his  as- 
surance seemed  to  rest,  not  on  the  conventional 
groundwork  of  birth  and  breeding,  but  rather  on 
his  power  and  will  to  knock  you  through  the  door 
if  he  cared  to  take  the  trouble. 

Of  course,  he  was  profoundly  ignorant,  knowing 
nothing,  reading  little,  his  life  bounded  by  the 


INFATUATION  109 

footlights  on  one  side,  and  the  stage-door  on  the 
other  —  and  like  all  such  men  perpetually  nervous 
lest  he  should  be  found  out.     His  inherent  ability 
was  enormous  —  as  enormous  as  his  vanity.     He 
had  fought  his  way  up  from  nothing  —  from  the 
muddy  streets  in  which  he  had  sold  papers,  and 
begged,  and  starved,  his  whole  boyhood  long.     He 
was  full  of  instincts  that  had  never  had  the  chance 
of  becoming  anything  more  —  instincts,  which,  if 
cultivated,  might  have  made  him  a  very  different 
man.     He  was  passionately  fond  of  bad  music ;  de- 
lighted in  the  only  pictures  he  knew,  those  in  hotels 
and  saloons;  he  had,  stored  away  in  a  memory 
that    never    forgot    anything,    half    the    plays    of 
Shakespeare,  and  thousands  of  lines  of  trashy  verse. 
A  savage,  in  fact,  in  the  midst  of  our  civilization, 
which,  after  trying  to  grind  him  into  powder,  and 
denying   him   everything,    was   unjust   enough   to 
despise  him  heartily  for  what  he  had  made  of  him- 
self unaided.     Could  he  have  refrained  from  taking 
offense  at  trifles,  and  from  punching  people's  heads, 
he  could  easily  have  retained  the  high  place  he  had 
once  held  on  the  New  York  stage.     He  had  no  one 
to  thank  but  himself  if  he  were  now  touring  the 
country  in  a  fifty-class  company,  with  an  enemy  in 


i  io  INFATUATION 

every  manager  who  had  ever  employed  him.  He 
had  a  strong,  unusual  talent.  In  the  delineation  of 
somber  and  misunderstood  natures,  contradictory, 
pent-up,  heroic  —  the  out  and  out  bad  man  with  a 
spark  of  good  —  he  was  admitted  by  metropolitan 
critics  to  have  no  equal  in  America.  Others  copied 
him  slavishly  and  made  successes,  while  he,  their 
inspiration  and  their  model,  remained  compara- 
tively unknown.  There  were  times  when  he  felt 
very  badly  about  it,  but  a  pretty  face  and  a  provo- 
cative petticoat  could  always  divert  his  attention. 
Needless  to  say  he  had  not  to  look  far  to  find  either. 

"  Larry,"  he  asked  nonchalantly,  "  do  you  know 
any  people  in  Carthage  here  named  Ladd  ?  " 

"  I  don't  believe  I  do,  Mr.  Adair,"  returned 
Larry,  scratching  his  head.  "  Leastways,  none  ex- 
cept Robert  T.  R.  Ladd,  the  railroad  president." 
Larry  was  unable  to  conceive  that  this  mighty  name 
could  possibly  have  any  bearing  on  Adair's  ques- 
tion. "  No,  I  don't  believe  I  do." 

"Oh,  the  railroad  president?     Any  family?" 

"  Just  one  daughter." 

"Well,  go  on  — tell  me  about  her." 

"  Why,  there  isn't  much  to  say,  except  people 
call  her  the  prettiest  girl  in  Carthage  —  but  then 


INFATUATION  in 

they  always  say  that  of  a  millionaire's  daughter  — 
Emma  Satterlee  would  turn  the  milk  sour,  and  yet 
in  the  society  notes  — " 

"  Did  you  ever  see  her  ?  —  No,  no,  I  don't  mean 
that  one  —  the  railroad  man's  —  the  Ladd  girl?" 

"  Yes,  I  saw  her  onst  in  a  church  fair.  She 
hit  me  all  right.  Slender  brunette,  very  aristoc- 
racy, with  the  kind  of  eyes  that  if  you're  fond 
of  brunettes  —  seem  like  — " 

"How  old  is  she?" 

"  Hell,  how  do  I  know !  Twenty  —  twenty-one 
—  something  around  there.  Just  a  girl." 

"  And  the  prettiest  one  in  Carthage  ? "  repeated 
Adair,  sipping  his  cocktail  as  though  the  descrip- 
tion pleased  him. 

"  Well,  I  would  leave  my  happy  home  for  her," 
said  Larry,  with  a  grin.  "  Pretty  —  I'd  say  she 
was  pretty  —  pretty  enough  to  eat." 

"  Lives  out  Chestnut  Avenue  way,  doesn't  she  ?  " 

"  Yes,  in  the  stone  house  that's  set  back  in  a 
kind  of  park,  with  a  big  gate  in  front  and  a  drive- 
way. The  Ladds'  are  at  the  top  of  the  top,  you 
know.  My,  I  felt  I  was  breaking  into  the  swell 
bunch  myself  when  she  told  my  fortune  for  a  dol- 
lar. If  J  had  had  the  nerve  and  the  money  I  guess 


112  INFATUATION 

she  would  be  telling  it  yet!  And  she  smiled  so 
sweet  when  she  took  it,  like  I  was  as  good  as  any- 
body. God  forgive  me  if  I  seem  to  talk  disre- 
spectful of  her,  for  she's  a  lady  through  and 
through,  and  I  knew  it  even  if  I  was  only  a  bar- 
keeper." 

"  Toss  you  for  the  drinks,"  said  Adair,  draining 
his  glass.  "  Hand  over  the  box,  Larry." 

"  Sure  Mike,"  said  the  bar-keeper  rattling  the 
dice. 

Adair  encountered  an  acquaintance,  a  commer- 
cial traveler  named  Hellman,  on  the  sidewalk  out- 
side. 

"  Just  the  fellow  I  wanted  to  see,"  he  cried. 
"  Hellman,  there  is  such  a  word  as  temerity,  isn't 
there?" 

"  Bet  your  life,"  said  Hellman.  "  The  temerity 
of  my  playing  Hamlet,  you  know  —  the  temerity  of 
you  thinking  yourself  a  better-looking  man  than  I 
am  —  the  temerity  of  — " 

"And  you  spell  it  t-e-m-e-r-i-t-y  ?  "  interrupted 
Adair. 

"Yes,  why?" 

"  Oh,  I  used  it  in  a  letter  I  was  writing  to  a  girl. 


INFATUATION  113 

and  I  didn't  want  to  mail  it  till  I  was  sure."  He 
showed  the  envelope  in  his  hand,  with  his  thumb 
hiding-  the  name. 

"  Always  at  it,"  said  Hellman,  with  an  unpleas- 
ant laugh.  "  Who  are  you  throwing  the  handker- 
chief at  now?" 

"  The  prettiest  girl  in  Carthage,"  returned  Adair 
genially.  "  There's  a  box  over  there  —  let's  drop 
it  in." 

And  together  they  crossed  the  street,  and  sent 
the  letter  on  its  way. 

It  was  to  Phyllis,  begging  in  warm  but  respect- 
ful language  for  the  privilege  of  calling  on  her. 


CHAPTER  X 

**T     "VEAR  Mr.  Adair:  I  hardly  expected  you 

J    to  reply  to  my  note,  nor  could  I  have 

thought  it  would  please  you  so  much  as 

you  say.     Indeed,  I  hope  you  will  not  misjudge  it 

—  or  me  —  for  it  was  written  on  the  same  impulse 
that  makes  one  applaud  in  the  theater  itself,  and 
with  no  ulterior  idea.     Frankly,   I   do  not  think 
I  ought  to  ask  you  to  call  —  the  circumstances  are 
so  peculiar  — and  it  is  all  so  against  the  conven- 
tionalities.    In  Washington  or  New  York  it  would 
be  different,   but  this  little  place  —  like  all  little 
places  —  is  strait-laced  beyond  belief.     It  will  be 
my  loss  more  than  yours,  which  perhaps  will  be 
some  consolation  to  you.     Yet  it  seems  too  stupid 
to  say  no  —  that  is,  if  you  really  do  want  to  come 

—  and  I  am  going  to  ask  you  after  all.     Surely 
a  little  talk  over  a  cup  of  tea  to-morrow  at  five 
ought  not  to  arrest  the  stars  in  their  courses,  or 
bring  down  the  pillars  of  the  universe  on  our  un- 

114 


INFATUATION  115 

fortunate  heads?  And  if  any  one  should  come  in, 
we  might  say  that  we  had  met  before  in  Wash- 
ington? That  would  place  our  acquaintance  on  a 
more  correct  footing,  and  save  me,  at  least,  the 
possibility  of  embarrassment.  Is  this  asking  too 
much  of  you?  Sincerely  yours,  Phyllis  Ladd." 


CHAPTER  XI 

i  HERE  are  men  who  pursue  women  with  a 
skill,  zest  and  pertinacity  that  others  do 
bears  or  tigers,  and  with  very  much  the 
same  hardihood  and  delight.  In  the  rich  preserves 
of  the  world,  so  well  stocked  with  youth  and  beauty, 
they  find  an  unending  enjoyment,  and  an  unending 
occupation.  No  sooner  have  they  brought  down 
one,  and  beheld  her  bleeding  and  stricken  at  their 
feet,  than  they  are  up  and  off,  with  another  notch 
on  their  gun,  and  fresh  ardor  in  their  hearts.  They 
are  debarred  from  taking  the  tangible  trophies  of 
skin  and  head ;  a  slipper,  a  glove,  a  bundle  of  letters 
are  often  all  they  have  to  show;  but  within  them 
wells  the  satisfaction  of  the  hunter  who  has  made 
a  "  kill." 

Amongst  this  race  of  sportsmen  there  were  few 
hardier  or  more  daring  than  Cyril  Adair.  That 
the  game  was  cruel  or  cowardly  had  never  occurred 
to  him.  The  women  he  knew  —  all  of  the  lower 

116 


INFATUATION  117 

class  —  frequently  played  their  side  of  it  with  eyes 
wide  open,  and  ran  —  not  to  escape  —  but  with  the 
full  intention  of  being  caught.  This  is  not  urged 
in  his  extenuation.  Often  he  was  not  aware  of 
the  subterfuge.  Women  to  him  were  but  prey, 
and  in  more  venerable  times  he  would  have  way- 
laid any  lady  he  favored,  with  a  club. 

Behold  him  in  immaculate  afternoon  costume, 
striding  along  Chestnut  Avenue  —  boutonniere, 
silk-hat,  cane,  new  suede  gloves,  etc. —  a  devil  of  a 
fellow  in  his  own  estimation,  with  an  air  and  a 
swagger  that  reflected  his  profound  contentment 
with  himself.  He  had  never  gone  a-hunting  before 
in  such  a  splendid  wood.  The  thought  that  he  was 
actually  going  to  invade  one  of  those  imposing 
mansions  made  his  pulses  leap.  How  big  they 
were,  how  aristocratic!  What  incomes  they  repre- 
sented !  What  mysteries  of  ease  and  luxury  lay 
hidden  behind  those  stately  windows!  He  was 
tremendously  stirred;  tremendously  excited.  He 
swelled  with  self-complacency.  He  was  hardly 
over  thirty,  he  was  handsome,  he  was  a  genius  — 
and  the  women  loved  him ! 

A  man-servant  admitted  him.  Yes,  Miss  Ladd 
was  expecting  him.  His  hat  and  cane  were  taken, 


n8  INFATUATION 

while  he  gazed,  somewhat  daunted,  at  the  immense 
hall  in  which  he  found  himself.  He  had  a  con- 
fused sense  of  tapestries;  of  stone  bas-reliefs  very 
worn  and  old;  of  oriental  rugs;  of  strange-looking, 
moldy  chairs,  straight-backed  and  carved,  with 
massive  arms,  on  which  there  was  still  the  fading 
gilt  of  the  fifteenth  century. —  He  was  led  through 
another  room  of  a  similar  cold  and  spacious  mag- 
nificence, and  then  up-stairs  to  the  drawing-room. 
Here  he  was  left,  while  the  man  departed  to  inform 
his  mistress  of  the  visitor's  arrival. 

The  elegance  and  beauty  with  which  Adair  found 
himself  surrounded  fairly  took  his  breath  away. 
His  only  standard  was  that  of  fashionable  hotels, 
yet  here  was  something  that  made  the  splendors  of 
the  Waldorf  or  the  Auditorium  seem  suddenly 
tawdry  in  comparison.  His  instinctive  good  taste 
was  ravished  by  the  old  Venetian  brocades,  the 
rich  dark  pictures,  the  Sheriton  furniture,  the 
harmonious  blending  of  all  these,  and  so  many  other 
half-seen  and  half-comprehended  things  into  a 
gracious  and  exquisite  whole.  Near  him  was  the 
table  set  out  for  tea,  with  silver  that  it  was  a  joy 
to  look  at;  and  about  the  little  island  it  made  in 
the  vastness  of  the  room  was  a  wealth  of  red  roses, 


INFATUATION  119 

marking  as  it  were  the  boundaries  of  coziness  and 
intimacy. 

Adair's  complacency  was  not  proof  against  such 
aristocratic  and  undreamed  of  surroundings.  His 
exultation  fell,  and  pangs  of  self-pity  assailed  him. 
What  was  he  but  a  child  of  the  gutter,  an  outcast 
—  a  man  full  of  yearning  for  the  unattainable,  who 
had  been  starved  and  kept  down  by  merciless  cir- 
cumstances? Such  swift  transitions  were  not  un- 
usual in  his  peculiar  and  contradictory  nature. 
After  all,  he  was  an  artist,  even  if  often  a  brute  and 
a  fool,  and  somewhere  within  him,  very  much  over- 
laid and  shrouded,  there  was  a  spark  of  the  divine 
fire.  Yes,  he  said  to  himself,  he  was  coarse  and 
common,  and  ignorant  and  unrefined.  He  had  done 
much  with  himself;  he  had  achieved  wonders,  con- 
sidering the  handicap  he  had  always  been  under  — 
but  admitting  all  that,  what  enormous  deficiencies 
still  remained!  How  ill  at  ease  he  was  in  such  a 
room  as  this!  How  hard  he  would  have  to  strive 
to  hide  his  lack  of  knowledge  and  breeding!  He 
had  almost  wished  he  had  never  come.  In  such  a 
place  he  was  an  intruder  —  a  boor  —  condemned 
to  blunder  through  a  part  with  no  author's  lines  to 
help  him. 


120  INFATUATION 

As  it  turned  out,  nothing  could  have  been  more 
fortunate  for  him  than  this  dejected  mood.  First 
appearances  are  everything,  and  he  might  easily  — 
so  easily  —  have  made  an  intolerable  impression. 
Indeed,  in  the  cold  fit,  almost  the  terror,  succeeding 
the  impulse  that  had  caused  Phyllis  to  invite  him, 
she  was  prepared  to  find  him  forward,  and  perhaps 
eager  to  take  advantage  of  her  recklessness,  and 
misconstrue  it.  At  the  hint  of  such  a  thing  she 
would  have  frozen;  and  the  fact  that  she  would 
only  have  had  herself  to  blame  would  have  doubled 
her  humiliation.  A  woman  who  makes  the  first 
advances  to  a  man  is  more  capable  than  any  of 
sudden  revulsions.  Her  pride  is  on  edge,  and  mor- 
bidly apprehensive. 

But  the  grave,  quiet,  handsome  man  awaiting  her 
dispelled  these  fancies  as  soon  as  their  eyes  had 
met.  He  thanked  her  with  an  embarrassment  not 
unbecoming  under  the  circumstances,  for  the  un- 
conventionality  that  had  given  him  the  privilege  of 
meeting  her.  His  smile  as  he  said  this  was  charm- 
ing; his  respect  and  courtesy  beyond  reproach;  that 
other  nature  of  his,  the  artist-nature,  so  quick  and 
responsive  in  its  intuitions  warned  him  to  put  a 
guard  on  himself.  Besides,  if  the  room  had  over- 


INFATUATION  121 

awed  him,  how  much  more  overpowering  was  the 
apparition  of  this  slim  and  radiant  woman,  the  mis- 
tress of  all  this  splendor,  whose  pure  dark  face  filled 
him  with  an  indefinable  sense  of  another  world  in 
which  he  was  but  a  clod.  Though  he  was  a  con- 
noisseur of  pretty  women,  and  had  possessed  in 
his  disreputable  past  many  of  greater  physical 
beauty  than  Phyllis,  not  one  of  them  had  had  the 
least  pretensions  to  what  in  her  appealed  to  him  so 
strongly  —  distinction.  From  her  glossy  hair  to 
the  tips  of  her  little  feet,  she  was  the  embodiment 
of  race,  of  high-breeding  and  high  spirit ;  it  was  as 
marked  in  her  girlish  beauty  as  in  any  thorough- 
bred. She  was  the  child  of  those  who  had  ad- 
mitted no  superior  save  their  God  and  their  King. 
Adair  found  himself  bereft  of  all  his  assurance. 
The  professional  besieger,  accustomed  to  advance 
with  sureness  and  precision,  unaccountably  held 
back,  hardly  knowing  why  his  heart  had  turned  to 
water.  It  seemed  presumptuous  enough  that  he 
should  even  talk  on  terms  of  equality  with  one  so 
immeasurably  above  him.  His  humility  was  pain- 
ful. He  stammered.  He  colored.  His  hand 
trembled  on  his  tea-cup  as  he  strove  to  keep  alive 
a  conversation  of  the  usual  commonplaces. 


122  INFATUATION 

"  Miss  Ladd,"  he  said  suddenly,  "  you  mustn't 
think  I  am  a  gentleman  —  because  I  am  not.  I 
am  not  accustomed  to  this  kind  of  thing;  you  are 
the  first  lady  I  —  I've  ever  met."  He  arrested  the 
expostulation  on  her  lips  and  went  on  hurriedly. 
"  It's  much  better  to  tell  you  that  right  off.  I 
don't  know  those  books  you  speak  of ;  I  don't  know 
anything  very  much;  I  am  awfully  uncultivated 
and  ignorant.  There,  I  have  said  it !  It  will  make 
me  feel  more  comfortable,  and  it  will  be  lots  better 
than  pretending  I  am  something  I'm  not." 
"  You  are  a  great  actor,  Mr.  Adair." 
"  My  God,"  he  returned  with  simplicity,  "  some- 
times I'm  not  so  sure  that  I  am."  Then  he  burst 
into  laughter  at  his  own  artlessness  —  a  delightful 
laugh,  contagious  and  musical,  that  no  one  could 
hear  without  liking  him  the  better.  Phyllis 
laughed,  too,  and  somehow  with  it  the  ice  seemed 
broken,  and  constraint  disappeared.  "  Miss  Ladd," 
he  went  on,  "  people  like  you,  and  places  like  this, 
are  the  realities  which  we  try  so  hard  to  copy  with 
our  poor  theatrical  pasteboard  and  calico.  I  used 
to  hate  Mansfield  for  saying  we  ought  to  work  as 
servants  amongst  —  well,  people  we  couldn't  meet 


INFATUATION  123 

in  any  other  way,  and  yet  the  ones  we  are  audacious 
enough  to  represent  on  the  stage.  He  meant  it  as 
an  insult,  of  course  —  but  he  was  right  in  some 
ways.  Just  seeing  you  pour  tea  makes  me  feel  how 
badly  we  do  even  that !  " 

Phyllis,  naturally,  was  touched  and  flattered. 

"  Why,  we  just  pour  it  anyhow,"  she  said,  smil- 
ing. 

"  Precisely,"  exclaimed  Adair,  "  and  now  let  me 
do  it  our  way !  "  He  drew  nearer  the  table,  put  his 
hand  to  the  tea-pot,  and  grimacing  at  an  imaginary 
company,  proceeded  to  pour  and  pass  several  im- 
aginary cups  with  a  grotesque  affectation  of  grace 
and  elegance.  "  Two  lumps,  dear  Sir  James  ?  — 
Patricia,  the  Bishop  is  famishing  for  some  almond 
cake. —  Oh,  mercy  me,  and  what's  become  of  the 
Dook  ?  "  It  was  an  admirable  bit  of  mimicry,  and 
so  gay  and  captivating  in  its  satire  that  Phyllis 
thought  she  had  never  seen  anything  so  clever. 
She  laughed  with  delight  and  clapped  her  hands. 

"  Though  you  shock  me,  too,"  she  protested. 
"  Correze  mustn't  do  things  like  that  —  it  isn't  in 
keeping." 

"Correze?" 


124  INFATUATION 

"  Yes,  you  are  not  Mr.  Adair  to  me,  though  I 
know  that's  your  name,  and  I  have  invited  you.  I 
can  only  think  of  you  as  Correze." 

"  Was  I  as  good  as  that  in  the  part  ?  " 

"  I  told  you  what  I  thought  of  it  in  my  note." 

"  And  you  really  meant  it?  " 

"  Would  I  have  written  if  I  hadn't  ?  It  was  an 
awful  thing  to  do.  I  can't  think  of  it  without 
burning  with  shame. —  How  can  you  say  you  are 
not  a  gentleman,  Mr.  Adair?  Only  a  gentleman 
would  have  put  the  right  construction  on  it." 

He  was  questioning  her  face  with  his  fine  eyes. 
His  intuition  again  stood  him  in  good  stead.  This 
was  not  provocation,  it  was  innocence.  To  himself 
he  said:  "No,  it  is  impossible." 

Then  aloud :  "  It  was  the  only  construction  — 
and  I  felt  childishly  pleased.  We're  great  chil- 
dren, you  know,  we  actors;  and  after  all,  are  we 
to  blame  for  liking  approbation?  Just  think  a  mo- 
ment. How  close  it  all  is  to  the  ridiculous,  our 
standing  up  there  and  declaiming  all  sorts  of  red- 
hot  emotions,  with  painted  paper  on  one  side,  and 
bald-headed  fiddlers  on  the  other !  Doesn't  it  some- 
times come  over  a  man  —  sort  of  shoot  through 
him  —  the  feeling  of  what  a  monkey-spectacle  he 


INFATUATION  125 

is  making  of  himself?  You  go  ahead  and  play 
Lady  Macbeth  in  a  nightgown;  rage  and  strut  be- 
fore those  cold,  scornful  faces.  Then  let  one 
amongst  them  cry:  a Bravo,  bravo/  and  give  you 
a  hand !  —  My  Lord,  you'd  give  him  your  watch 
and  chain,  your  diamond  pin  —  don't  you  see,  he 
returns  you  your  self-respect,  makes  your  work 
worth  the  doing?  —  and  that's  what  your  note  did 
for  me,  Miss  Ladd." 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Adair,  don't  talk  to  me  about  the 
cold,  scornful  faces  at  your  performance.  I  was 
there  twice,  and  saw  how  they  called  you  out !  " 

"  Miss  Ladd,"  he  said,  his  strong,  handsome, 
eager  face  whimsically  alight,  "  let  me  confess  the 
honest  truth  —  an  actor  simply  can't  have  enough 
admiration!" 

"  You  worry  me  for  fear  I  didn't  make  mine 
warm  enough !  For  really,  Mr.  Adair,  in  all  sin- 
cerity, I—" 

"  Well,  go  on." 

"  Bravo,  bravo !  "  Her  lips  parted  mockingly 
over  her  white  teeth  as  she  pretended  to  ap- 
plaud madly.  It  was  the  daintiest  teasing,  and 
more  charming  in  the  intimacy  it  implied  than  any 
downright  praise.  Adair  glowed  with  a  pleasure 


126  INFATUATION 

so  honest  and  boyish  that  Phyllis  might  be  forgiven 
for  not  suspecting  the  baser  depths  he  hid  so  well. 

"  I'm  a  conceited  ass,"  he  admitted,  "  and  after 
all,  isn't  it  enough  to  turn  a  man's  head  to  be 
here  with  you,  and  feel  I  owe  it  to  the  ginger  I  put 
into  Correze?  Most  people  get  their  friends  by 
introductions  and  all  that,  but  I  just  snatched  you 
out  of  a  whole  theater  full  of  strangers.  For  you 
are  my  friend,  aren't  you,  Miss  Ladd  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Correze." 

"  You'll  be  making  me  jealous  of  the  chap,"  he 
cried  running  his  hands  through  his  hair  with 
make-believe  exasperation.  "  I  think  he  is  a  good 
deal  of  a  whining  humbug  myself,  and  the  sly  way 
he  throws  bouquets  at  himself  is  disgusting.  Miss 
Ladd,  I  am  ever  so  much  nicer  than  he  is  —  really 
I  am  —  though  I  see  I  shall  never  be  able  to  con- 
vince you." 

"  No  reason  why  you  shouldn't  try." 

"  Perhaps  I  am  ashamed  to,"  he  returned,  with 
an  intensity  of  expression  that  became  him  well. 
"  You  find  me  in  a  wretched  little  theater,  the 
cheapest  of  cheap  stars  —  the  hoodlum's  pet,  the 
shop-girl's  dream  — and  how  can  it  help  coloring 
your  whole  idea  of  me?  You  admire  my  Correze, 


INFATUATION  127 

but  for  me  myself  how  can  you  have  anything  but 
contempt  ?  No,  no  —  listen  —  it's  true  —  and  the 
more  you  knew  of  my  history  the  more  contemptu- 
ous you'd  be.  I've  been  rated  very  high;  I've  had 
every  chance  in  the  world;  I've  played  with  the 
biggest  kind  of  people,  and  —  succeeded.  Yet  I 
have  always  been  the  dog  who  hanged  himself. 
No,  there  is  no  mystery  about  it  —  there  never  is 
with  a  man  who  is  sinking  —  a  man  of  ability.  It's 
his  own  fault  every  time  —  every,  every  time." 

His  earnestness  made  Phyllis  thrill.  Adair  was 
playing  his  best  role  —  himself,  and  playing  it  with 
the  fire  and  eloquence  he  could  always  bring  to  it. 
His  voice,  incomparable  in  the  beauty  and  range 
of  its  tones,  was  never  so  effective  as  when  tinged 
with  emotion.  Nothing  was  more  manly,  more  sin- 
cere, more  moving.  It  rose  and  fell  in  cadences 
that  lingered  in  the  ear  after  the  words  themselves 
were  spoken  —  veritable  music,  affecting  not  only 
the  listener,  but  the  musician  as  well.  Under  the 
spell  of  it  he  now  found  himself  tempted  into 
strange  confidences.  Never  before  had  he  spoken 
of  his  childhood  and  early  life  except  to  lie,  to 
brag,  to  romance.  Yet  here,  to  his  own  wonder, 
and  impelled  by  he  hardly  knew  what,  he  was  un- 


128  INFATUATION 

bosoming  himself  of  the  whole  ignoble  truth. 
That  instinct  of  his,  so  often  wiser  than  himself, 
so  diabolically  helpful,  was  showing  him  the  right 
road.  Had  Phyllis  been  some  little  milliner  this 
would  have  been  no  road  at  all;  such  a  one  would 
have  been  too  familiar  with  the  seamy  side  of  life 
to  find  any  glamour  in  the  tale;  such  a  one  would 
have  preferred  the  bogus  palaces  and  bogus  splen- 
dors his  instinct  would  then  have  indicated.  Phyl- 
lis' intelligence  was  too  keen  thus  to  be  deceived; 
even  genuine  splendors  would  have  interested  her 
less  than  this  pitiful  story  of  the  slums;  it  not  only 
touched  her  sensibility  to  the  quick,  but  enhanced 
Adair  in  her  tender  and  sympathetic  eyes. 

His  father  had  been  an  Englishman  —  a  remit- 
tance man  named  Mayne  —  George  Cyril  Augustus 
Fitzroy  Mayne.  Whether  his  pretensions  were 
justified  or  not,  and  they  were  inordinate,  includ- 
ing "Wales"  and  "Cambridge,"  he  was  beyond 
all  doubt  a  gentleman,  with  grand  manners,  a  back 
like  a  ramrod,  and  a  curt,  military  directness  in 
speaking.  He  used  to  say  "  dammy  " ;  was  fond 
of  alluding  to  himself  as  "  an  old  Hussar  " ;  was 
wont  to  remark  that  a  gentleman  could  always  be 
told  by  his  hat  and  his  boots;  and  once,  when  at- 


INFATUATION  129 

tacked  on  the  street,  had  shown  extraordinary  cour- 
age and  adroitness  in  defending  himself  with  a  light 
cane.  This  was  about  all  Adair  remembered  of 
him,  except  that  he  drank  hard;  had  recurring  fits 
of  delirium  tremens  in  which  he  raged  and  fought 
like  a  wild  beast;  and  finally,  dying  in  a  hospital 
ward,  was  buried  like  a  dog  in  the  Potter's  Field. 
Adair's  mother  had  been  an  Irish  peasant  girl. 
She  was  kind  and  warm-hearted,  and  spoke  with  a 
brogue;  she  was  always  laughing  and  singing,  even 
under  circumstances  when  a  right-minded  person 
would  have  thrown  himself  into  the  East  River. 
She  drank,  too.  Everybody  drank.  He  used  to 
be  given  sips  from  her  glass,  and  knew  what  it  was 
to  be  tipsy  before  he  was  eight.  It  was  about  that 
time  he  began  to  sell  papers  on  the  streets,  for 
his  father  was  dead,  and  his  mother —  Well,  he 
wouldn't  go  into  that.  But  in  her  way  she  had 
always  been  good  to  him.  She  wouldn't  let  the 
men  beat  him.  When  she  was  sent  to  the  Island 
for  the  second  time  he  thought  his  little  heart  would 
break.  She  didn't  last  long  after  that.  How 
could  she,  gone  as  she  was  in  consumption,  and 
drinking  like  a  fish?  Oh,  what  a  hell  it  was  — 
what  a  hell!  His  pennies  were  all  his  own  now, 


i3o  INFATUATION 

though  he  often  had  to  fight  to  keep  them.  He 
was  always  fighting  to  keep  them  —  first  in  despera- 
tion, then  by  degrees  with  some  coolness  and 
science.  The  bigger  boys  coached  him;  egged 
him  on;  he  became  a  regular  little  bantam.  They'd 
make  up  a  purse  —  a  quarter  or  something  —  and 
set  two  little  wretches  to  pounding  each  other. 
Anything  was  allowed,  you  know  —  biting,  kicking, 
scrooging,  hair  pulling!  There  was  only  one  rule, 
and  that  was  to  win. 

Well,  so  it  went  on,  till  he  was  sixteen  or  there- 
abouts, the  toughest  young  tough  you  could  see 
on  Avenue  A.  He  was  nicknamed  Fighting  Joe, 
and  they  used  to  get  up  cheap  little  matches  for  him 
in  the  back  rooms  of  saloons  —  real  fighting, 
stripped  to  the  waist,  and  four  ounce  gloves.  His 
only  ambition  was  to  get  into  the  prize  ring,  and  in 
his  dreams  at  night  he  would  see  his  picture  in  the 
Police  Gazette.  Then  the  Settlement  workers  came 

—  a  pale-looking  outfit,  with  Mission  furniture  and 
leaflets.     They  were  regarded  as  a  great  infliction 

—  as  an  insult  to  an  honest  tough  neighborhood. 
It  was  the  correct  thing  to  break  their  windows, 
and  lambast  their  followers.     Fighting  Joe  took  a 
prominent  part  in  this  righteous  task.     What  did 


INFATUATION  131 

it  matter  that  several  of  them  were  women  ?  What 
did  such  brutes  care  for  that?  If  ever  there  was 
a  young  savage  on  earth  it  was  he. 

One  of  the  women  was  tall  and  pretty  —  not 
very  young  —  twenty-eight  or  twenty-nine  perhaps. 
Miss  Cooke,  she  was  —  Miss  Grace  Cooke.  She 
would  never  see  him  but  what  she  would  turn  white 
with  anger  and  fear.  You  see,  everything  was  put 
down  to  him,  all  that  he  did  do,  and  all  that  he 
didn't  —  and  totaling  up  both  sides  of  it,  it  ran 
to  a  lot.  He  couldn't  begin  to  remember  the  cad- 
dish things  he  was  answerable  for ;  he  didn't  care  to 
try;  my  God,  what  a  brute  he  was,  what  a  brute! 
And  yet  he  admired  this  woman;  guessed  he  was 
in  love  with  her  in  a  calfy  way;  took  every  chance 
to  see  her  —  and  insult  her !  Of  course,  there 
wasn't  the  faintest  reason  why  he  shouldn't  have 
walked  into  the  Settlement,  said  he  was  sorry,  and 
have  been  received  with  open  arms.  But  people 
like  that  can't  say  they  are  sorry  —  they  don't  know 
how.  Besides,  the  social  disgrace  of  it  would  have 
been  awful!  Joe  Mayne  running  with  that  gospel 
gang!  The  thing  was  incredible. 

Late  one  winter  afternoon  he  saw  her  in  the 
midst  of  a  crowd  of  hobbledehoys,  hooting  and 


1 32  INFATUATION 

jeering  at  her.  She  was  walking  as  fast  as  she 
dared,  looking  straight  ahead  of  her,  and  pretending 
not  to  notice.  It  was  dark;  the  street  was  empty; 
and  if  she  was  scared  she  had  mighty  good  reason 
for  it.  One  of  the  fellows  lurched  against  her,  and 
down  she  went  on  the  sidewalk;  as  she  tried  to 
rise  another  rolled  her  over,  and  tore  her  hat  off. 
Of  course,  it  was  a  great  joke,  and  they  were  all 
roaring  with  laughter.  Then  it  was  he  came  run- 
ning up  —  Joe  —  and  when  she  saw  him  she  gave 
him  a  look  he  would  remember  to  the  day  he  died. 
Oh,  the  terror  of  it  —  the  shrinking!  But  he 
smashed  one  on  the  jaw,  caught  another  between 
the  eyes,  and  lifted  her  up,  half  fainting  as  she 
was,  and  tried  with  his  dirty  .hands  to  smooth  her 
hair,  and  put  on  her  hat  again. —  That's  how  they 
came  to  be  friends ;  that's  how  he  came  to  be  landed 
in  the  Settlement;  everything  real  in  his  life  dated 
from  that  moment. 

He  was  with  them  two  years ;  with  them  as  long 
as  she  lived.  There  wasn't  a  good  quality  in  him 
that  she  didn't  put  there.  On  census  forms,  and 
such  things,  when  asked  his  religion,  he  always 
felt  inclined  to  write :  "  Grace  Cooke."  By  God, 
it  would  have  been  the  truth.  She  was  his  re- 


INFATUATION  133 

ligion  yet,  far  though  he  had  fallen  away  from 
it  —  oh,  so  far  — !  She  stood  for  everything  that 
was  good  and  beautiful  and  noble.  It  wasn't  love. 
It  was  beyond  all  love.  She  was  a  Madonna,  a 
saint,  and  he  had  had  the  privilege  to  kneel  at 
her  feet  —  a  Caliban  of  the  slums,  a  tough,  a  hood- 
lum, unworthy  to  touch  the  hem  of  her  garment. 
Then  she  died,  and  that  was  the  end  of  it.  He 
didn't  care  for  the  Settlement  after  she  died.  He 
got  a  job  as  chucker-out  in  a  low  place  called  the 
Crystal  Palace.  There  was  a  dais,  and  performers 
used  to  sing.  He  thought  he  would  try  it  himself, 
and  made  quite  a  hit.  Then  he  began  giving  reci- 
tations —  The  Fi-erman's  Dream,  and  that  kind 
/ 

of  thing,  and  they  caught  on.  He  owed  it  all  to 
Grace  Cooke,  who  had  taught  him  to  read —  (not 
ordinary  reading,  he  had  picked  that  up  somehow 
for  himself)  — but  real  reading,  dramatic  reading. 
From  this  it  was  a  step  to  monologues  in  costume, 
and  from  that  to  the  vaudeville  stage. 

Sitting  there  in  the  growing  dusk,  and  in  an 
atmosphere  so  conducive  to  confidence,  Adair  un- 
folded his  early  life  with  a  tender,  persuasive  and 
charming  humor.  He  often  laughed ;  often  he  was 
silent;  again  and  again  he  would  look  up,  and 


134  INFATUATION 

seek  Phyllis'  eyes  in  a  lingering  glance  as  though 
to  assure  himself  of  her  interest.  For  once  in  his 
life  he  was  shy;  the  slim,  pretty  hand  he  gazed 
at  so  covetously  was  safe  from  any  touch  of  his; 
something  told  him  that  the  least  familiarity  would 
cost  him  all  he  had  gained. —  It  was  not  policy  on 
his  part.  He  was  too  humble  to  think  of  policy. 
To  be  with  her  alone  seemed  presumption  enough 
—  to  feel  her  sympathy,  her  friendship.  Not  a 
word  or  act  of  his  should  mar  that  wonderful  day. 

He  rose,  apologizing  for  having  stayed  so  long. 

"  It  is  your  own  fault,"  he  said,  holding  out  his 
hand,  "  you've  made  me  forget  everything." 

"  I'm  afraid  it  was  the  other  way  round,  Mr. 
Adair,"  she  returned,  trying  to  smile,  and  thank- 
ful for  the  darkness  that  veiled  her  face. 

"  Am  I  ever  to  see  you  again  ?  " 

She  shook  her  head. 

"  You  mean  it  is  good-by,  Miss  Ladd  ?  " 

"  Yes,  it's  good-by." 

Her  hand  was  in  his,  so  soft,  so  motionless,  yet 
somehow  so  reluctant  to  leave  his  grasp.  His  head 
was  turning;  he  could  not  go  like  that.  No,  no, 
he  could  not.  He  suddenly  pulled  her  towards 
him,  and  caught  her  in  his  arms,  kissing  her  hair, 


INFATUATION  135 

her  cheek,  her  mouth,  with  a  passion  that  cared 
little  whether  she  was  crushed  or  smothered  in. 
his  embrace.  Good  God,  what  was  he  doing? 
After  holding  back  so  long,  what  diabolical  folly 
had  tempted  him  to  this?  Yet  she  had  said  it  was 
good-by.  He  had  nothing  to  lose.  Let  her  pant 
and  struggle  and  tremble,  he  would  take  tribute 
of  her  beauty  nevertheless,  however  much  she  was 
insulted  or  outraged.  His  lips  were  wet  with  her 
tears.  He  forced  her  to  receive  his  kisses  on  her 
mouth,  exulting  in  the  strength  that  allowed  her 
no  escape.  But  was  she  resisting  him?  A  tremor 
of  maddening  delight  shot  through  his  frame.  Her 
mouth  was  seeking  his,  and  he  heard  her  whisper- 
ing breathlessly :  "  I  love  you,  I  love  you,  I  love 
you!" 

It  was  so  unexpected,  so  surprising,  that  he  let 
her  free.  She  sank  into  a  chair  and  covered  her 
burning  face,  repelling  him  as  he  threw  himself 
on  his  knees  beside  her. 

"If  you  don't  go,  I  shall  never  forgive  you ! " 
she  exclaimed.  "  Haven't  you  shamed  me  enough  ? 
Do  you  want  me  to  die  of  humiliation  ?  "  Then, 
from  the  heart,  came  the  woman's  cry :  "  What  will 
you  think  of  me  ?  " 


136  INFATUATION 

That  instinct,  which  in  Adair  took  the  place  of 
conscience,  honor,  all  the  conventional  virtues  and 
restraints,  again  came  steadfastly  to  his  help.  He 
bent  down;  kissed  her  on  the  brow;  and  getting 
his  hat  and  cane  abruptly  took  his  departure. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  dictionary  with  unhesitating  positive- 
ness  informs  us  that  infatuation  is  "  un- 
reasonable or  extravagant  passion."  But 
are  there  not  those  who  have  stayed  unreasonably 
impassioned  to  the  end,  those  whose  earthly  part- 
ing has  been  but  at  the  grave?  And  does  not  love 
of  the  admitted,  recognized,  unextravagant,  very 
much  approved,  bless-you-my-children  kind  only 
too  often  ring  out  its  knell  in  the  divorce  court? 
That  Phyllis  was  infatuated  with  this  good-looking 
scamp  was  beyond  question,  if  by  that  one  meant 
his  physical  attraction  held  her  as  much  a  slave 
as  any  of  our  ravished  ancestors  in  the  Vikings' 
boats.  Her  will  was  gone;  her  judgment;  all  her 
nicely-balanced  highly-critical  young-ladyism.  It 
was  horrifying  to  her  to  realize  it ;  her  powerlessness 
was  at  once  an  agony  and  a  delight;  it  came  over 
her,  with  a  frightening  sense  of  injustice,  that  a 

137 


138  INFATUATION 

woman's  happiness  lies  beyond  herself,  and  is  for 
ever  dependent  on  some  man. 

Naturally  she  sat  down,  and  wrote  him  a  sad 
little  letter.  He  was  to  forget  everything  that  had 
passed,  and  not  misjudge  her  for  an  uncontrollable 
impulse.  Were  he  to  presume  upon  it,  she  would 
not  only  die  of  shame,  but  would  be  forced  to  per- 
ceive that  her  trust  had  been  misplaced.  As  a 
gentleman  and  a  man  of  honor  —  and  she  knew  him 
to  be  both  —  he  would  understand  that  it  was  im- 
possible for  them  ever  to  meet  again,  and  that  her 
good-by  was  indeed  irrevocable.  But  her  good 
wishes  would  always  attend  him,  and  she  would 
sign  herself,  in  all  sincerity,  his  friend,  Phyllis 
Ladd.  This  done,  she  waited  in  a  fever  of  im- 
patience for  his  answer,  hoping,  dreading,  tumultu- 
ously  inconsistent,  hot  fits  and  cold  succeeding  each 
other  in  her  troubled  and  anxious  heart. 

It  may  be  imagined  how  unkindly  Adair  took 
her  commands.  In  his  large,  straggling  hand,  and 
over  six  sheets  of  hotel  paper  he  expressed  his 
energetic  dissent.  It  was  a  trite  letter  —  flowery 
and  theatrical  —  her  haunting  eyes,  the  memory 
of  her  adorable  beauty,  the  despair  of  a  man  who 
had  found  love  only  to  lose  it,  etc.  Had  Phyllis 


INFATUATION  139 

been  herself  it  would  have  made  her  smile.  Noth- 
ing, indeed,  could  have  shown  how  far  she  had 
traveled  on  the  road  of  illusion  than  her  acceptance 
of  these  well-worn  phrases.  The  tears  sprang  to 
her  eyes  at  the  smooth  and  nicely-rounded  descrip- 
tion of  his  wretchedness;  she  glowed  and  thrilled 
at  the  praise  of  herself,  its  boldness  redeemed  by 
what  she  ascribed  to  a  lover's  ardor;  the  pathetic 
plea  for  another  meeting  was  irresistible.  It  might 
be  unwise ;  it  was  sure  to  be  painful ;  but,  after  all, 
it  was  his  right.  He  loved  her;  he  bowed  to  her 
decision;  his  life  was  hard  at  best,  and  now  doubly 
so;  what  he  asked  was  so  little  for  her  to  give, 
yet  to  him  it  was  everything  —  to  see  her  once 
more  before  they  parted  for  ever. 

They  met  this  time  at  the  corner  of  a  remote 
street.  He  was  very  pale,  very  quiet,  and  it  was 
not  a  lie  he  told  her  that  he  had  been  unable  to 
sleep  for  thinking  of  her.  Had  she  known  better 
what  those  thoughts  were  she  would  have  shrunk 
from  him.  But,  fortunately  or  not,  she  did  not 
know.  She,  too,  was  quiet  and  pale,  and  it  was  with 
the  sense  of  an  impending  fate  that  she  took  his  arm, 
and  slowly  walked  with  him  along  the  foot-path. 


i4o  INFATUATION 

Unconsciously  he  was  more  masterful  with  her, 
now  that  she  was  away  from  that  daunting  house, 
and  that  awe-inspiring  drawing-room.  The  sanc- 
tity that  had  enveloped  her  there  had  largely  dis- 
appeared. Here  was  a  situation  he  was  used  to  — 
a  distractingly  pretty  girl,  a  sidewalk  rendezvous, 
and  an  infatuation  that  needed  but  the  right  hand- 
ling to  bring  it  to  the  proper  conclusion. 

Yet  with  everything  so  plain  —  and  apparently 
so  easy,  Adair  himself  was  in  a  whirl  of  strange 
and  new  emotions.  Something  had  pierced  his 
colossal  selfishness,  and  was  disturbing  him.  It 
was  annoying  at  a  time  when  he  needed  all  his 
wits  about  him,  and  he  resented  it  as  a  symptom 
of  unmanly  weakness.  One  drop  of  real  love  in 
that  ocean  of  sham  was  threatening  to  poison  the 
whole.  He  did  not  put  it  thus  concretely.  He  only 
knew  that  he  was  uncomfortable,  and  not  rising 
as  he  should  to  the  occasion.  Except  for  that 
far-away  Grace  Cooke  he  had  never  known  a  decent 
woman.  His  counterfeit  love  had  been  lavished 
on  counterfeit  innocence  and  counterfeit  purity. 
Fooling,  he  had  always  been  fooled. 

But  this  proud  and  melting  young  beauty  lay 
outside  of  all  his  experience.  Had  she  defended 


INFATUATION  141 

herself  he  would  have  known  better  how  to  attack. 
But  she  made  no  demur  when  he  took  her  hand 
and  kissed  it;  she  did  not  resist,  when,  after  look- 
ing up  and  down  the  street  to  see  if  they  had  it 
to  themselves,  he  caught  her  boldly  in  his  arms, 
and  crushed  her  against  himself,  murmuring  a  tor- 
rent of  words  that  came  so  readily  to  his  practised 
lips.  How  radiantly  she  smiled  when  he  tore  off 
a  tiny  corner  of  her  letter,  and  told  her  she  had 
to  eat  it  as  a  punishment.  Her  saucy  obedience  put 
him  in  a  seventh  heaven,  and  it  was  with  a  sort 
of  ecstasy  that  he  snatched  it  from  her,  fearful 
lest  it  might  do  her  harm.  That  letter,  in  one 
sense,  had  been  disposed  of  almost  as  soon  as  they 
had  met.  She  had  tried,  for  a  moment  or  two, 
to  adhere  to  it,  and  to  make  him  see  the  necessity 
of  that  good-by.  But  under  the  glamour  of  his 
presence  she  faltered  and  broke  down,  and  all  that 
was  left  of  the  matter  was  her  incoherent  plea 
for  forgiveness.  What  tenderness  she  put  into  this 
request!  There  never  could  be  a  good-by  between 
them  —  never,  never  —  and  her  eyes  swam  with 
tears  at  her  disloyalty  to  him. 

Both  felt  an  uplifting  gaiety  and  light-hearted- 
ness,    as   she   said,    in   extenuation   of   her   happy 


142  INFATUATION 

laughter,  that  they  were  like  people  who  had  grown 
rich  overnight,  for  had  they  not  discovered  an 
enormous  nugget  —  a  nugget  of  love  ?  It  had  been 
lying  there  for  any  to  find,  but  they  had  been  the 
lucky  ones !  They  had  a  right  to  be  excited,  hadn't 
they?  The  only  really  serious  thing  was  the  fact 
that  they  might  have  missed  it.  They  might  have 
stubbed  against  it,  and  passed  on  —  like  idiots. 
She  developed  this  fantasy  with  captivating  grace 
and  archness,  Adair  meanwhile  lost  in  admiration, 
not  only  of  the  delicate  fancy  that  kept  him  smiling, 
but  of  her  varying  expressions  so  revealing  of 
unexpected  charm.  She  grew  prettier  and  prettier 
to  him  —  more  kissable,  more  adorable.  He  kept 
forgetting  his  ulterior  purpose  in  the  rapture  of 
being  with  her;  he  forgot  his  conceit,  forgot  his 
role ;  he  was  perilously  near  being  in  love.  Perhaps 
he  was  in  love.  At  any  rate,  when  he  recollected 
to  take  advantage  of  this  unconcealed  regard  for 
him  —  of  all  this  young  ardor  and  innocent  pas- 
sion —  the  words  somehow  would  not  leave  his 
tongue. 

Her  sensitive  mouth,  so  responsive  to  every  look 
of  his,  the  sweet  candor  of  her  eyes,  her  trans- 
parent belief  in  him  —  all  forbade.  There  would 


INFATUATION  143 

be  time  enough  for  that;  and  having  made  this 
concession  to  his  manhood,  he  straightway  put  the 
idea  by,  dimly  realizing  to  himself  that  it  was  un- 
pleasant to  him.  It  takes  a  bad  man  to  appreciate 
and  exalt  the  best  of  women;  he  sees  her  in  such 
a  contrasting  light;  her  baser  sisters  give  her  by 
relief  an  angelic  brightness.  It  is  not  for  nothing 
that  they  say  the  reformed  rake  makes  the  best 
husband.  Not  that  Adair  had  gone  so  far  as  this, 
however.  He  was  not  reformed,  and  cold  chills 
would  have  run  down  his  back  at  the  horrid  pros- 
pect; while  his  own  brief  career  as  a  husband  had 
left  him  with  a  hatred  for  the  word  and  the  in- 
stitution. It  was  merely  a  fleeting  impulse, 
stronger  for  the  moment  than  he  was,  and  induced 
by  his  artist  love  of  beauty,  which  included  this 
time  in  its  comprehension,  a  rare,  gracious  and 
exquisite  nature. 

They  were  together  for  nearly  two  hours,  and 
;when  they  were  forced  at  last  to  part  it  seemed  as 
though  only  the  half  had  been  said.  Yet  not  for 
an  instant  had  they  ever  got  near  the  realities. 
iWith  Adair  these  were  consciously  avoided.  It 
was  one  thing  to  say:  "I  love  you,"  with  mellow 
vibrations,  and  impassioned  eyes;  quite  another  to 


144  INFATUATION 

descend  to  the  practical  considerations  that  might 
reasonably  be  expected  to  follow.  He  felt  neither 
in  the  humor  to  lie,  nor  to  palter  with  the  ugly 
truth,  and  in  a  sort  of  anger  dismissed  both  alterna- 
tives. He  was  intoxicated  with  her;  she  mounted 
to  his  brain  like  wine ;  he  only  knew  one  thing,  that 
come  what  might,  she  should  never  get  away  from 
him.  This  was  all  his  dizzy  head  could  hold. 
The  future  could  take  care  of  itself. 

As  for  Phyllis  she  was  in  that  rapt  state  of 
happiness  when  a  woman  can  do  nothing  but  glow 
and  worship.  Had  not  the  king  descended  from 
his  throne  for  her?  At  last  was  not  her  long 
heart-hunger  gloriously  appeased?  Was  she  not 
so  possessed  with  this  demigod  that  all  other  sub- 
lunary concerns  seemed  to  vanish  into  insignifi- 
cance? She  walked  on  air;  she  exulted  in  the 
memory  of  his  caresses;  she  was  the  more  precious 
to  herself  now  that  she  was  his,  now  that  she  be- 
longed to  him  so  utterly.  She  hoarded  every  com- 
pliment he  had  paid  her ;  and  wondered,  in  delicious 
doubt,  though  not  altogether  unconvinced,  whether 
she  could  be,  indeed,  all  that  she  had  seemed  to  him. 
As  for  the  deeper  questions,  she  had  the  woman's 
faculty  of  answering  them  in  formless  dreams. 


INFATUATION  145 

They  were  settled  in  a  vague,  tender  and  alto- 
gether perfect  manner.  He  —  and  she  —  and  a 
billowing  bliss  on  which  they  floated  evermore,  hand 
pressed  in  hand,  mouth  against  mouth,  in  an  in- 
effable and  transcendant  content. 

Adair,  once  beyond  her  influence,  was  aware  of 
a  certain  sagging  of  that  higher  nature  she  had 
conjured  into  being.  Not  that  he  loved  her  any 
less;  he  was  on  fire  for  her,  and  his  coarse  passion 
was  inflamed  a  thousandfold  by  their  second  meet- 
ing. But,  as  he  said  to  himself,  he  had  muffed  it. 
He  was  not  the  first  man  to  feel  a  twinge  of  guilt 
at  having  been  good.  He  was  a  child  of  his  world, 
of  his  conditions,  upbringing  and  environment,  and 
ought  not  to  be  blamed  over-much  —  rather  com- 
mended for  the  first  faint  stirrings  of  an  embryo 
conscience,  which,  if  it  had  died  all  too  soon,  was 
still  a  spark  of  grace. 

The  performance  tired  him  more  than  usual.  He 
was  slack,  and  could  not  get  into  his  part  As  a 
consequence,  to  offset  his  disinclination,  he  over- 
played, and  left  the  theater  thoroughly  exasper- 
ated, and  out  of  heart.  He  took  supper  moodily 
by  himself,  and  though  ordinarily  abstemious  —  for 
no  one  with  his  complexion  could  be  accused  of 


146  INFATUATION 

habitual  excess  —  he  drank  high-ball  after  high- 
ball with  a  brutal  satisfaction  in  fuddling  himself. 
He  grew  wickeder  with  every  gulp,  more  cold- 
blooded and  determined.  He  would  see  this  thing 
through,  by  God.  He  would  take  her  with  him 
on  the  road.  She  was  ripe  for  it;  she  was  crazy 
about  him  —  lady  and  all,  there  was  the  devil  in 
her  all  right.  The  nicest  women  were  the  worst 
when  they  let  themselves  go.  What  a  fool  he  had 
been  ever  to  bother  with  the  other  kind.  He  had 
always  been  a  cheap  fellow,  pleased  with  cheap 
things  —  with  raddled  actresses,  and  silly  tiresome 
shop-girls.  Here  was  a  little  piece  that  put  them 
all  in  the  shade;  prettier  than  the  prettiest,  dewy 
fresh,  with  a  twist  to  everything  she  said  so  that 
it  was  an  endless  pleasure  to  be  with  her.  She  was 
so  quick,  so  daintily  impudent,  so  finely  bred  and 
educated.  God,  what  an  armful!  God,  what  a 
little  mistress  for  a  tired  and  lonely  man,  sick  to 
death  of  common  women! 

He  reeled  up-stairs,  half  drunk,  and  sought  his 
room,  to  sleep  the  sleep  of  perfect  health  and  per- 
fect digestion.  Whatever  else  Adair  was,  he  was 
a  sound  and  vigorous  human  animal,  with  a  con- 
stitution of  iron.  No  dreams  disturbed  his  repose 


INFATUATION  147 

—  no  spectral  finger  of  remorse  pointed  at  him.  A 
child  could  not  have  lain  more  peacefully  on  its  cot 
than  he. 

It  will  be  asked  wfiy  he  could  not  have  married 
Phyllis  properly  and  honestly?  Apart  from  other 
considerations  was  she  not  the  only  daughter  of 
a  millionaire  father  ?  How  did  Adair  come  to  over- 
look this  very  obvious  advantage,  and  embark  in- 
stead on  all  the  troubles  and  vexations  attending  an 
illicit  connection?  To  answer  this  question  it  is 
necessary  to  go  back  four  or  five  years,  and  rake 
up  his  marriage  with  Ruby  Raeburn,  the  dancer. 
She,  too,  had  been  the  daughter  of  a  rich  man  — 
Laidlaw  Wright,  the  Michigan  lumber  king.  Adair 
had  thought  he  was  doing  a  very  good  thing  for 
himself.  To  have  a  father-in-law  who  is  a  "  lumber 
king  "  has  a  pleasant  sound.  Without  knowing  ex- 
actly how  it  was  to  happen,  he  looked  forward  con- 
fidently to  a  flow  of  dollars  in  his  direction,  either 
in  cash,  or  vicariously  in  royal  "  tips."  Surely  a 
lumber  king  would  take  care  of  his  own  —  and  of 
his  own's  husband.  Ruby  herself  had  not  been 
above  reproach  in  holding  out  the  bait,  and  every- 
body had  congratulated  him,  or  sneered  at  him  for 
"marrying  money."  Alas,  for  the  disillusion  that 


;i48  INFATUATION 

followed.  Laidlaw  Wright  was  the  hardest-fisted 
man  on  the  Lakes,  and  no  bulldog,  guarding  a 
lunch  basket,  could  have  shown  more  formidable 
fangs  than  he  at  any  hand  slipping  towards  his 
money-bags.  Adair  learned  the  sad  truth  that  when 
you  possess  the  millionaire's  daughter,  it  does  not 
necessarily  follow  that  you  possess  the  millionaire. 
His  dead  body  must  too  often  be  crossed  first  —  and 
this  event,  however  desirable,  can  not  be  unduly 
hurried. 

And  meanness  was  not  the  only  drawback  to 
Laidlaw  Wright's  character.  He  could  spend 
money  as  viciously  as  he  withheld  it,  and  make 
of  it  a  whip  of  scorpions  for  the  scourging  of  sons- 
in-law.  When  Adair's  domestic  unhappiness 
reached  the  acute  stage,  the  cantankerous  old  fel- 
low jumped  into  the  ring,  snorting  battle  and  de- 
struction. Money  was  poured  out  like  water; 
giants  of  the  bar  were  retained  at  enormous  fees; 
detective  bureaus  worked  night  and  day.  Adair 
was  shadowed;  his  door  was  burst  open  at  a  time 
of  all  others  when  he  would  have  much  preferred 
to  have  it  stay  shut ;  statutes  of  which  he  had  never 
dreamed,  lying  hidden  and  unrepealed  in  the  dark 
recesses  of  the  law,  were  evoked  against  him  with 


INFATUATION  149 

startling  effect.  He  was  sent  to  prison  in  default 
of  the  bail  he  could  not  give.  Then  after  eighteen 
weary  days,  which  the  giants  of  the  bar  would 
willingly  have  made  eighteen  months,  he  was  tried, 
and  his  case  dismissed.  But  as  he  left  the  court 
room  he  was  again  arrested.  That  implacable  old 
man,  with  his  cohorts  of  lawyers  and  detectives, 
had  furbished  up  fresh  charges.  The  indictment 
was  a  mile  long.  Again  there  was  bail,  default,  and 
gnashing  of  teeth  in  a  stinking  cell.  Of  course, 
he  had  legal  remedies,  but  these  involved  legal  ten- 
der. He  had  spent  his  last  dollar;  legal  remedies 
had  to  be  paid  for,  and  he  had  nothing  to  pay  with. 
A  wealthy  and  vindictive  man,  if  he  choose  to  do 
so,  and  does  not  grudge  the  outlay,  can  make  our 
judicial  machinery  into  a  most  serviceable  steam- 
roller. 

After  the  divorce,  when  all  seemed  settled  and 
done  with,  there  were  alimony  bomb-shells  to  be 
contended  with.  This  tribute  on  his  son-in-law's 
freedom  became  the  obsessing  prepossession  of 
Laidlaw  Wright's  life.  He  subordinated  the  lum- 
ber business  to  collecting  this  forty-five  dollars  a 
week,  until  it  became  Adair's  fixed  and  unalterable 
purpose  to  escape  payment  by  every  means  in  his 


150  INFATUATION 

power.  North  or  South,  East  or  West,  the  battle 
went  on.  Injunctions,  contempt  proceedings, 
printed  forms  in  immense  envelopes,  beginning  with 
the  familiar  phrase :  "  You  are  cited  to  appear  be- 
fore Judge  So-and-So  to  show  cause  why  that  you, 
etc.,  etc." —  rained  on  Adair's  head  wherever  Sat- 
urday night  might  find  it.  Incidentally  eyes  were 
blackened;  blood  streamed  on  box-office  floors; 
bandaged  functionaries  and  limping  attorneys  cried 
for  vengeance  in  shabby  court  rooms  —  and  not 
only  cried,  but  often  got  it,  in  a  heaping  measure. 
And  afar,  the  lumber  king,  like  a  horrible  spider 
whose  net  covered  the  country  from  sea  to  sea, 
kept  the  wires  busy  and  hot  with  hate. 

When  Ruby  was  killed  in  what  was  called  "  the 
hansom  cab  mystery  " —  an  ugly  affair  that  was 
never  really  cleared  up  —  the  old  man  probably 
mourned  less  for  her  than  for  the  loss  of  his  cheer- 
less hobby  —  the  persecution  of  Cyril  Adair. 
However  wealthy  you  are,  you  can  not  move  the 
legal  steam-roller  without  at  least  a  pretense  of 
justification;  and  now  the  justification  lay  with 
Ruby  Raeburn  in  the  grave,  as  stilled  as  her  danc- 
ing feet,  as  finished  and  done  with  as  the  life  that 
had  gone  out  so  tragically. 


INFATUATION  151 

It  had  all  left  Adair  with  a  profound  hatred  of 
marriage,  and  a  still  profounder  hatred  of  rich 
fathers-in-law.  The  one  suggested  jail,  mortifica- 
tion, alimony,  raided  box-offices,  large  and  deter- 
mined individuals  bursting  in  your  doors;  the  other 
an  unrelenting  monster,  pitiless  and  crafty,  trailing 
after  you  night  and  day,  like  a  bloodhound.  There 
was  no  glamour  to  Adair  in  Robert  Ladd's  millions, 
but  rather  a  sinister  and  awful  significance;  and 
as  for  marrying  Phyllis,  and  putting  his  head  again 
in  that  noose  —  who  that  had  been  in  hell  ever 
willingly  went  back  to  it?  The  very  thought  made 
him  shudder.  He  might  be  weak  and  impulsive, 
and  easily  swept  off  his  feet  by  her  damned  beauty 
—  but  he  wasn't  as  weak  and  impulsive  as  that! 


CHAPTER  XIII 

AS  had  been  previously  arranged  he  met  her 
the  next  day  at  the  same  place.  He  had 
come  in  a  closed  cab,  which  he  had  left  a 
couple  of  blocks  away,  and  he  insisted  on  their 
returning  to  it,  and  having  out  their  talk  in  its 
shelter.  Phyllis  demurred  at  first;  it  wore  an  un- 
pleasant look  to  her ;  it  was  not  fear  exactly  —  she 
trusted  Adair  too  absolutely  for  that  —  but  rather 
a  disinclination  in  which  good  taste  played  the 
bigger  part.  It  seemed  to  her  low,  and  discredit- 
able, and  unworthy.  Her  love  was  too  fine  a  thing, 
and  too  dear  •  to  her,  to  have  it  associated  with 
dingy  cushions,  a  dirty  floor  carpet,  and  the  vulgar- 
izing secrecy  of  that  shabby  interior.  It  took  some 
persuasion  to  get  her  to  consent;  and  though  she 
did  so  at  last  under  the  spell  of  that  irresistible 
voice,  it  was  with  a  sudden  quenching  of  the  bright- 
ness that  had  illumined  her  heart. 

But  it  never  occurred  to  her  to  think  the  worse 
152 


INFATUATION  153 

of  Adair.  A  man  could  not  be  expected  to  have 
the  sensitiveness  of  a  woman.  His  love  was  like 
himself,  robust  and  masterful;  he  fastened  a  string 
to  your  little  collar,  and  dragged  you  after  him 
with  a  splendid  insouciance.  Every  one  of  your 
four  little  paws  might  be  holding  back;  you  might 
be  whimpering  most  pitifully,  but  if  he  wanted  a 
closed  cab,  in  you  had  to  go,  whether  you  liked  it 
or  not.  Not  that  you  would  have  had  him  different; 
it  was  sweet  to  submit;  and  if  he  were  big,  and 
direct,  and  unshakable  —  so,  too,  was  his  love. 

They  drove  slowly  through  the  suburban  streets, 
locked  in  each  other's  arms.  He  kissed  her  back  to 
happiness,  to  rapture,  the  discreet  twilight  screening 
them  in  its  shadow.  Her  qualms  disappeared,  her 
reluctance,  her  shrinkings  from  the  ugliness  and 
commonness  of  that  horrid  old  box.  Nothing  mat- 
tered so  long  as  they  could  be  together,  and  in 
her  exaltation  she  even  suffered  some  pangs  of 
remorse  for  having  resisted  his  pleadings  at  all. — 
She  had  never  cared  for  children,  but  as  her  arms 
were  clasped  about  his  neck,  she  felt  a  welling  ten- 
derness for  him  that  opened  her  understanding  to 
the  love  of  a  mother  for  her  babe  —  the  divine  com- 
passion, the  exquisite  desire  to  protect  and  shield, 


154  INFATUATION 

the  willingness,  if  need  be,  to  die  herself  rather  than 
to  have  it  suffer  the  least  of  harm.  She  whispered 
this  to  him  in  words  so  sincere  and  moving,  with 
eyes  so  moist,  and  lips  so  quivering,  and  her  whole 
young  face  so  glorified  by  the  shining  soul  within, 
that  Adair  would  have  been  less  than  human  had 
he  not  succumbed. 

He  was  abashed;  his  carefully  rehearsed  plans 
were  glad  to  creep  out  of  sight  and  hide;  it  would 
have  needed  very  little  for  him  to  fall  on  his  knees, 
penitent  and  ashamed,  and  blurt  out  —  not  the 
truth;  the  truth  wasn't  tellable  —  but  enough  to 
make  him  seem  less  of  a  beast  to  himself,  less  of  a 
hypocrite  and  villain.  But  he  paused  midway ;  and 
the  impulse,  which,  if  he  had  allowed  it  to  control 
him  might  have  carried  him  into  unsuspected  regions 
of  honor  and  manliness,  died  still-born;  and  left 
him  —  if  not  exactly  what  he  had  been  —  at  least 
not  so  very  much  the  better. 

With  everything  so  favorable  to  his  purpose,  it 
continued  to  be  a  mystery  to  him  that  he  still  held 
back.  This  backwardness,  this  fear,  was  a  new 
sensation.  He  had  won  prettier  women  in  his 
day,  and  had  won  them  briskly  and  straightfor- 
wardly, move  by  move,  with  cool  premeditation. 


INFATUATION  155 

Why  should  he  falter  at  this  one,  like  a  ninny? 
What  was  it  about  her  that  checked  and  daunted 
him  ?  She  had  flung  herself  at  him ;  she  had  neither 
the  will  nor  the  knowledge  to  protect  herself;  she 
was  as  innocent  as  a  child,  and  had  delivered  her- 
self over  to  him  as  guilelessly.  But  it  was  not  her 
innocence  that  stood  in  his  way;  he  had  no  such 
scruples  about  innocence;  innocence,  if  anything, 
ought  to  have  whetted  the  pursuit.  It  was  some- 
thing subtler  than  that  —  this  withholding  force. 
It  was  more  as  though  she  were  some  proud  young 
queen  who  had  been  craftily  made  drunk  with  drugs, 
and  then  had  been  abandoned  in  her  helplessness 
to  become  the  sport  of  a  passing  soldier.  .  .  . 
How  surprised  Adair  would  have  been  had  he  been 
told  that  the  love  always  on  his  lips,  profaned  with 
every  breath  he  drew,  a  lie  in  every  sense  save  the 
very  lowest,  was,  in  all  good  earnest,  stealthily 
making  entry  in  his  heart! 

Making?  Why,  it  had  been  there  from  the  first, 
all  unknown  to  him.  But  like  many  a  man  the 
devious  road  seemed  to  him  the  straighter;  it  was 
the  one  he  meant  to  follow,  anyhow,  lead  where 
it  might;  he  would  overcome  this  strange  squeam- 
ishness  that  annoyed  and  bewildered  him.  What 


156  INFATUATION 

an  ass  he  was !  He  remembered  his  first  deer,  and 
how  the  rifle  had  shaken  in  his  hands  —  how  his 
teeth  had  chattered  —  how  it  had  calmly  walked 
past  him,  not  twelve  yards  away,  and  disappeared 
unscathed.  The  boys  had  called  it  "  buck  fever," 
and  had  guyed  him.  Hell,  this  was  a  kind  of  buck 
fever,  too,  though  without  the  excuse  of  inexperi- 
ence .  .  .  but  still  there  was  no  sense  in  hurry- 
ing matters.  There  was  plenty  of  time,  old  fel- 
low, plenty  of  time. 

Thus  the  day  lingered  out  in  talk  and  vows  and 
kisses,  with  nothing  achieved  in  any  direction,  and 
the  situation  apparently  unchanged.  Love  has  a 
wonderful  power  of  floating  on  without  ever  touch- 
ing the  banks  of  reality!  And  when  one  of  the 
lovers  keeps  the  bark  deliberately  in  mid-stream,  and 
the  other  poor  lunatic  is  so  lost  in  ecstasy  that  her 
understanding  is  in  the  skies  —  hours  can  pass  like 
minutes,  and  darkness  descend  all  unawares. 

Again  they  kissed  and  parted,  and  Phyllis  re- 
turned home  in  the  sweet  weariness  of  one  who 
has  drunk  deep  of  the  cup  of  love.  No  unanswered 
questions  fretted  her,  no  disturbing  thoughts  of 
why  he  had  been  silent  on  the  most  important  thing 
of  all.  She  was  young,  fresh,  pretty,  well-born 


INFATUATION  157 

and  rich  —  why  then  should  she  doubt  ?  What,  to 
a  little  milliner,  would  have  been  the  inevitable  and 
all-engrossing  conjecture,  troubled  her  not  a  bit. 
Men  had  been  proposing  to  her  for  two  years;  love 
out  of  wedlock,  while  it  might  be  familiar  in  books, 
was  inconceivably  remote  to  her ;  marriage  was  like 
breathing;  it  was  one  of  the  great  unconsidered 
facts  of  life;  one  loved  —  one  married. 

Her  preoccupation  was  rather  with  closer  and 
dearer  things  —  the  varying  expressions  of  that 
fine  and  intensely  alive  face;  the  mouth  with  its 
ever  changing  charm;  that,  smiling,  could  lift  one 
to  paradise,  that,  laughing,  seemed  to  gladden  the 
whole  world;  the  eyes  so  lustrous,  so  melting,  and 
yet  that  at  a  word  could  turn  so  fierce;  the  wavy 
hair  that  was  such  a  joy  to  her  to  caress;  the  broad 
shoulders  that  had  pillowed  her  girlish  head,  and 
had  given  her  such  a  comforting  sense  of  vigor  and 
strength  —  all  her  own  by  the  divinest  of  divine 
rights.  Womanlike,  she  was  trying  to  merge  her- 
self in  the  man  she  loved;  to  subordinate  her  own 
individuality  in  his;  to  become,  if  she  could,  a  slim, 
small,  dainty  counterpart  of  this  God-given  creature 
who  had  stooped  to  her  from  high  Heaven  itself. 

She  ate  a  good  dinner  and  enjoyed  it;  drank  a 


158  INFATUATION 

glass  of  claret  with  a  connoisseur-like  satisfaction 
in  its  fine  bouquet;  for  she  came  of  a  stock  with 
a  royal  taste  for  pleasure,  in  little  things  as  well 
as  big.  If  her  father  appeared  somewhat  con- 
strained, and  more  grave  and  silent  than  was  his 
wont,  she  ascribed  it  to  nothing  more  than  a  hard 
day  at  the  office;  and  exerted  herself  with  all  her 
superabundant  good  humor  to  amuse  and  distract 
him.  But  for  once  she  was  unsuccessful,  and  as 
the  meal  proceeded  his  brown  study  increased. 
After  dinner,  as  usual  when  they  were  alone,  they 
went  up  to  his  "  den,"  the  custom  being  for  him 
to  smoke  a  cigar  while  she  glanced  over  the  even- 
ing papers,  and  read  to  him  what  seemed  to  be 
of  interest.  As  she  stood  leaning  negligently 
against  the  mantelpiece  she  was  surprised  to  notice 
that  he  did  not  settle  himself  in  his  usual  chair. 
He  came  up  to  her  instead,  and  she  felt  a  sudden 
knocking  at  the  heart  as  her  uplifted  eyes  met  his. 

"  How  long  has  this  been  going  on  ?  "  he  de- 
manded in  a  low  voice. 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Papa  ?  " 

He  paused  as  though  to  control  himself. —  She 
knew  very  well  what  he  meant,  and  shivers  ran 
down  her  back. 


INFATUATION  159 

"  Your  carrying  on  with  this  actor  fellow.  This 
• —  this  Adair."  He  snapped  out  the  name  as 
though  it  tasted  bitter  on  his  lips  —  spat  it  —  hif^ 
gray  mustache  bristling. 

She  was  panic-stricken;  her  knees  weakened  be- 
neath her;  she  had  only  presence  of  mind  enough 
to  tell  herself  that  lies  could  not  help  her.  But 
lies  or  not,  at  that  moment  she  could  not  have  ut- 
tered a  word.  It  was  all  she  could  do  to  hold  to 
the  mantel  for  support. 

Mr.  Ladd  drew  out  his  pocket-book,  and  from  it 
a  letter. 

"  A  man  like  that  always  has  some  female  con- 
sort," he  went  on  brutally,  "  some  woman  of  his 
own  class  who  follows  his  shabby  fortunes,  and 
considers  him  for  the  time  being  as  her  especial 
property ;  and  who  protects  herself  when  that  prop- 
erty is  in  danger  by  ways  that  suggest  themselves 
to  vulgar  and  common  minds.  At  least,  I  do  not 
consider  it  an  unjust  inference  that  this  anonymous 
letter—" 

Phyllis  uttered  a  little  cry,  and  hid  her  face 
in  her  hands. —  So  that  was  what  it  was  ?  —  She 
ought  to  have  suspected  it.  But  even  in  her  shame 
a  dart  of  jealousy  passed  through  her  heart.  Who 


160  INFATUATION 

was  this  woman  who  was  trying  to  rob  her  of 
Adair? 

"  It  is  a  typical  letter  of  the  kind,"  continued 
Mr.  Ladd,  with  grim  persistence,  "  and  written  in 
a  hand  supposed  to  be  disguised,  as  though  any- 
thing could  disguise  the  greater  matter  of  the 
writer's  innate  vileness  and  swinishness.  It  starts 
with  the  usual  pretense  of  good  will,  of  friendly 
warning;  and  then  passes,  with  hardly  a  transition, 
to  charges  that  in  a  police  court  would  entail  its 
being  cleared  of  any  women  amongst  the  spectators. 
Frankly,  Phyllis,  it  is  abominable  —  though  I  am 
going  to  read  it  to  you,  not  with  the  idea  of  causing 
you  pain,  of  punishing  you,  but  to  show  you  much 
better  than  any  words  of  mine  could  do,  the  sort 
of  cattle  you  are  getting  mixed  up  with.  One 
judges  men  by  the  company  they  keep;  whoever 
this  woman  is,  it  may  be  presumed  she  knows  Adair 
well,  and  is  a  friend  of  his;  otherwise  what  could 
prompt  all  this  venom?  The  letter  is  a  mass  of 
lies,  but  it  has  a  side-light  value  on  this  man  you're 
letting  fool  you.  They  are  a  squalid,  contemptible 
crew,  and  all  tarred  with  the  same  stick." 

He  stopped  to  put  his  glasses  on  his  nose;  and 
smoothing  out  the  letter,  began  deliberately  to  read 


INFATUATION  161 

it:  "'You  ought  to  know  the  goings-on  of  that 
girl  of  yours,  and  if  nobody  else  is  enough  your 
friend  to  tell  you,  I  — '  " 

But  Phyllis  cried  out  before  he  could  proceed 
further. 

"  Oh,  Papa,"  she  exclaimed  in  passionate  en- 
treaty, "don't,  don't!  You  mustn't!  You're  de- 
grading me !  I  —  I  can't  stand  it !  " 

"  You  know  my  reasons  for  wanting  you  to  hear 
it,"  he  said  coldly. 

"  And  you  are  going  to  force  me  to  ?  " 
"  Yes,  I  am  —  for  your  own  good,  Phyllis." 
As  their  eyes  met  something  within  her  seemed 
to  break.  In  all  her  life  her  father  had  been  every- 
thing that  was  kind  and  gentle  and  indulgent.  His 
arms  had  ever  been  her  refuge;  she  had  cried  out 
her  baby  sorrows  on  his  shoulder;  how  often,  in 
contrast  to  other  girls,  she  had  thought  herself  the 
most  fortunate  of  women  to  have  such  a  father. 
Now,  in  her  direst  need  he  was  pitiless  and  in- 
flexible. He  was  determined  to  humiliate  her  with 
that  horrible  letter  —  for  his  manner,  everything, 
said  that  it  was  horrible.  To  gain  his  point  he  was 
willing  to  sweep  away  the  fabric  of  all  these  years. 
Oh,  the  stupidity  of  it,  the  cruelty !  Nothing  could 


162  INFATUATION 

ever  be  the  same  again  between  them  after  that. 
He  could  degrade  her,  but  it  would  cost  him  every 
iota  of  her  love. 

Her  bosom  swelled.  Her  anger  was  at  so  white 
a  heat  that  she  no  longer  felt  the  fears  and  shrink- 
ings  that  had  at  first  assailed  her;  her  heart  beat 
high,  but  to  another  and  a  fiercer  measure. 

What  a  moment  for  him  to  begin  again :  "  '  You 
ought  to  know  the  goings-on  of  that  girl  of  yours, 
and  if  nobody  else  — ' ' 

"Papa,  Papa!" 

"  My  dear,  you  must  not  interrupt  me.  I  insist 
on—" 

"  Then  let  me  read  it  to  myself." 

He  paused,  looking  at  her  in  indecision;  and 
from  her  to  the  coals  in  the  grate.  She  perceived 
the  meaning  of  his  hesitation,  and  laughed  scorn- 
fully. 

"  Oh,  you  can  trust  me,"  she  said,  holding  out 
her  hand.  "  Do  you  want  my  word,  or  what  ? 
I  won't  destroy  it.  Rest  assured  I  shall  give  you 
the  pleasure  of  knowing  I  am  reading  every  word 
of  it." 

He  resigned  it  to  her,  tugging  at  his  mustache, 
and  watching  her  covertly  as  she  moved  nearer  the 
light  and  began  to  read.  He  marveled  at  her 


INFATUATION  163 

composure,  her  decision.  She  was  not  evading  the 
ugly  task  —  her  eyes  moved  too  slowly  for  that, 
and  her  face  reflected  too  clearly  the  unsparing  com- 
ments on  her  behavior. 

It  was  coarse  beyond  belief.  Only  a  man  half 
out  of  his  wits  could  have  allowed  any  woman  of 
his  family  to  read  such  a  thing.  Many  of  the 
expressions  she  had  never  heard  before,  but  it  is 
a  peculiarity  of  gross  Anglo-Saxon  to  be  readily 
understood.  Nothing  was  lost  on  Phyllis,  either 
in  the  description  of  the  man  she  loved,  or  the 
accusations  of  the  vilest  kind  leveled  at  herself. 
It  was  an  infamous  production,  soiling  and  disgust- 
ing, nakedly  spiteful,  and  nakedly  pornographic. 

She  perused  it  unflinchingly  to  the  end;  studied 
the  signature,  "  One  who  knows,"  and  handed  it 
back  to  her  father. 

"  I  thought  people  were  put  in  prison  for  writing 
such  letters,"  she  said  in  an  even  voice. 

"  So  they  are,"  he  returned  curtly,  "  though  that 
isn't  quite  the  point." 

"What  is  the  point?" 

"  To  know  how  much  of  it  is  true." 

Again  her  composure  startled  him.  "  Is  it  pos- 
sible you  believe  any  of  it  ?  "  she  asked. 


164  INFATUATION 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  he  said. —  He  was  holding  the  letter 
in  his  hand,  like  a  lawyer  in  court,  cross-examining 
a  witness.  He  was  determined  to  get  at  the  bottom 
of  all  this. 

"  Is  it  true  you  went  to  the  theater  twice  ?  " 

"  As  a  spectator  —  yes." 

"  Is  it  true  that  you  wrote  a  letter  to  him  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  Is  it  true  you  invited  him  here  ?  " 

"  Yes,  he  came  once." 

"  And  it's  true  you  met  him  afterwards  on  one 
of  the  streets  in  the  Richmond  district?" 

"  Yes." 

"  It's  true  you  let  him  kiss  you  there  before 
everybody  —  embrace  you  —  hug  you  like  a  silly 
servant-girl  ?  " 

She  ignored  the  insult,  and  answered  imper- 
turbably :  "  It  was  a  deserted  place ;  I  didn't  know 
any  one  was  spying  on  us." 

"And  it's  true  to-day  you  met  him  again?  " 

"  Yes."  v 

"  And  drove  together  in  a  closed  cab  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  Now,  Phyllis,  my  girl,  on  your  honor ;  I  am  ask- 
ing you  this  as  your  father;  I  have  the  right  to 


INFATUATION  165 

ask  it,  and  the  right  to  a  sacredly  truthful  answer  — 
the  affair  has  gone  no  further  than  this?" 

"  No." 

"On  your  honor?" 

"  On  my  honor." 

"And  all  the  rest  of  it?"  — He  touched  the 
letter. 

"  Lies,  Papa  —  revolting,  hideous  lies." 

He  stumbled  towards  his  chair;  seated  himself 
in  it;  reached  for  the  cigar-box.  He  had  expected 
a  scene;  he  had  expected  tears,  pleading,  and  re- 
pentance. He  had  a  penetrating  sense  of  having 
mismanaged  everything.  Perhaps  he  ought  not  to 
have  shown  her  that  letter.  It  had  shocked  her 
through  and  through,  but  not  in  the  way  he  had 
intended.  He  had  meant  it  to  be  like  a  surgeon's 
knife  —  one  sure  swift  stroke,  and  she  was  to  rise 
cured,  disillusioned.  The  effect  had  been  discon- 
certingly different;  he  had  affronted  her  to  the 
quick,  he  had  roused  a  defiance  all  the  more  to  be 
feared  because  it  was  cool,  subdued,  controlled  — 
the  kind  that  is  apt  to  last. —  He  lit  his  cigar,  and 
blew  out  breath  after  breath  of  smoke.  He  must 
not  make  another  mistake.  He  would  think  a  little 
while  before  he  began  again. 


i66  INFATUATION 

She  glided  slowly  towards  the  door,  but  with 
an  air  so  unconcerned,  so  free  from  any  suggestion 
of  flight,  that  he  suspected  nothing.  The  fact  of 
her  leaving  the  door  ajar  seemed  to  imply  an  im- 
mediate return.  Several  minutes  passed  before  he 
suddenly  became  uneasy.  So  peremptory  was  his 
conviction  that  she  was  near  that  he  cried :  "  Phyl- 
lis, Phyllis,"  before  rising  to  find  out  what  had  be- 
come of  her.  But  she  was  not  in  the  corridor  out- 
side. He  sought  her  boudoir  —  nor  was  she  here 
either.  Her  bedroom  off  it?  It  was  empty,  too. 
Thoroughly  alarmed,  he  descended  the  stairs,  softly 
Calling  out,  "  Phyllis,  Phyllis !  "  He  was  answered 
by  a  servant's  voice  below :  "  Is  it  you,  Sir  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Henry,  I  am  looking  for  Miss  Phyllis  ?  " 

"  She  went  out  a  minute  ago,  Sir." 

"Went  out?" 

"  Yes,  Sir." 

Good  God,  she  was  gone! 


CHAPTER  XIV 

ONCE  outside  the  door,  she  had  raced  down- 
stairs like  the  wind,  put  on  her  hat  anyhow, 
and  sped  into  the  darkness,  without  wait- 
ing for  wrap  or  gloves.  Her  first  idea  had  been 
to  reach  the  theater,  but  as  she  turned  down  side 
streets  in  order  to  evade  pursuit  and  get  the  Fair- 
mount  Avenue  car  line,  she  realized  that  this  in- 
volved too  much  time.  Her  watch,  hastily  looked 
at  under  a  lamp,  showed  that  it  was  after  eight 
o'clock,  and  that  she  could  not  hope  to  gain  the 
theater  before  the  first  act  began.  She  decided  to 
telephone  instead,  and  accordingly,  walking  very 
fast,  and  sometimes  running  until  a  pain  in  her 
side  forced  her  to  desist,  she  made  her  way  to 
Fairmount  Avenue,  and  to  a  drug-store  she  knew 
to  be  there.  It  was  the  matter  of  a  moment  to 
look  up  the  number  of  the  Thalia  Theater,  unhook 
the  receiver,  and  get  central. 

167 


168  INFATUATION 

"  Nick-el,"  murmured  that  impersonal  arbiter  of 
human  destinies. 

"  I  don't  understand  —  please  give  me  my  num- 
ber, I'm  in  such  a  hurry." 

"Nick-el!" 

"  Drop  a  nickel  in  the  slot,  Miss,"  said  the  clerk 
helpfully. 

She  had  come  away  without  her  purse.  She 
hadn't  a  penny! 

As  quick  as  thought  she  pulled  off  one  of  her 
rings,  and  laid  it  on  the  counter. 

"  I  have  forgotten  my  purse,"  she  said.  "  Please 
let  me  have  a  quarter,  and  I'll  redeem  the  ring 
to-morrow." 

She  had  been  resourceful  enough  to  recollect 
she  needed  more  than  a  nickel  —  there  was  the 
trolley  fare  to  the  theater  and  back. 

The  clerk  took  the  ring  with  no  great  willing- 
ness; examined  it  with  every  apparent  intention  of 
denying  her  request;  then  examined  her  with  the 
same  sharp  look.  The  horrid  creature  recognized 
her,  and  his  manner  changed  to  a  cringing  defer- 
ence. "  Oh,  Miss  Ladd,  I  beg  your  pardon,  I  didn't 
know  it  was  you,  Miss  Ladd.  A  quarter?  Why 
certainly,  Miss  Ladd.  Only  too  happy  to  oblige 


INFATUATION  169 

you,  Miss  Ladd.  Take  back  your  ring,  and  pay 
any  time  at  your  convenience,  Miss  Ladd."  He 
rang  open  his  cash  register,  and  passed  her  three 
nickels  and  a  dime,  together  with  the  ring.  "  Put 
it  back  where  it  belongs,"  he  said,  smirking  and 
rubbing  his  hands.  "  My,  what  would  the  boss 
say  to  me  if  I  told  him  I  had  kept  Miss  Phyllis 
Ladd's  ring!" 

She  thanked  him,  and  again  gave  the  number 
at  the  telephone,  dropping  in  the  nickel  that  had 
cost  her  so  much.     The  clerk,  though  he  had  moved 
away,  was  all  eyes  and  ears,  and  she  had  an  un- 
pleasant sensation  of  being  watched.     But  it  was 
too  late  to  draw  back  now.     Her  need  was  too 
urgent,  too  desperate  for  such  irritating  trifles  to 
deter  her  from  her  purpose.     The  horrid  creature 
would  stare.     Well,  let  him  stare !     He  would  chat- 
ter about  it,  too,  of  course.     Well,  let  him  chatter! 
"  Thalia  Theater  —  box-office." 
"  I  want  to  speak  to  Mr.  Adair  at  once." 
"  It's  impossible  —  he's  in  his  dressing-room,  and 
we  ring  up  in  eight  minutes." 

"  I  simply  have  to  speak  to  him." 
"  Can't  do  it  —  it's  against  the  rules." 
"  Oh,  you  must,  you  simply  must ! " 


170  INFATUATION 

"Who  are  you?" 

"MissLadd!" 

"Who  did  you  say?" 

"Miss  Ladd  —  L-A-D-D." 

"  What  is  it,  please,  that  you  want  to  see  Mr. 
Adair  about  ?  " 

"  Something  very  important." 

"  I'm  sorry,  but  I  can't  do  it." 

"  No,  no,  please.  Mr.  Adair  will  never  forgive 
you  if  you  don't."  Then  she  had  an  inspiration. 
Where  or  how  she  had  learned  the  name  she  hardly 
knew,  but  it  flashed  across  her  mind  at  this  mo- 
ment. "  Is  Mr.  Merguelis  there  ?  " 

"  I  am  Mr.  Merguelis." 

"Mr.  Tom  Merguelis?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Then  you  might  know  who  I  am.  Mr. 
Adair—" 

"  Oh,  say,  yes  —  you're  not  the  little  lady  that 
he—" 

"  Yes,  that's  me." 

"  But,  my  dear,  he's  in  his  dressing-room,  and 
that's  on  the  level." 

"  I  simply  must  talk  to  him  for  a  second,  and 
you  must  go  and  get  him." 


INFATUATION  171 

"  Hello,  hello  —  is  that  you  ?  Hello  —  yes,  my 
dear,  I'm  sending  for  him.  Please  hold  the  line." 

What  an  age  it  seemed,  standing  there  with  the 
receiver  to  her  ear,  and  her  heart  bursting  with 
impatience.  Meaningless  scraps  of  talk  strained 
her  attention ;  when  these  stopped  she  was  in  terror 
lest  she  had  been  cut  off;  at  last  there  was  the 
peculiar  jarring  and  disturbance  that  showed  some- 
one getting  into  touch  at  the  other  end,  followed 
by  Adair's  strong  clear  challenge. 

"Who  wants  Mr.  Adair?" 

"  I  do  —  it's  Phyllis." 

"  Oh,  my  little  girl,  I'm  in  a  frightful  rush. 
Hurry  up,  tell  me  what's  the  matter  ?  " 

"  I  want  to  see  you  as  soon  as  I  can  —  some- 
thing awful  has  happened." 

"What?" 

"  I  can't  tell  you  here  —  but  can't  you  guess  ?  " 
«     "Trouble  at  home?" 

"  Yes." 

"Found  out?" 

"  Yes." 

"Your  father?" 

"  Yes." 

Adair  paused.     Events  were  moving  faster  than 


172 


INFATUATION 


he  had  anticipated.  He  was  both  thrilled  and  be- 
wildered at  the  suddenness  of  it  all. 

"  It's  risky,"  he  said,  in  a  voice  that  shook  a 
little,  "  but  you'll  have  to  come  up  and  see  me  here  — 
there's  nothing  else  for  it." 

"  That's  what  I  want  to  do,"  she  answered. 

"  I'll  fix  it  up  with  the  door-keeper  to  take  you 
to  my  dressing-room.  Just  say  you  have  an  ap- 
pointment with  me,  and  he'll  understand.  Wait 
there  for  me  until  the  first  act  is  over  —  will  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Cyril." 

"And  you  will  excuse  me  if  I  run?  They'll 
have  to  hold  the  curtain  as  it  is." 

"  Yes,  yes  —  and  I'll  be  there." 

"  Au  revoir,  sweetheart !  " 

"  Good-by  —  I  won't  be  long." 

The  stage-door,  like  most  stage-doors,  was  to  be 
found  in  a  cut-throat  alley,  so  dark,  dangerous,  and 
forbidding  in  its  aspect  that  it  took  all  of  Phyllis' 
courage  to  enter  it.  A  ratty-looking  individual,  so 
compactly  built  into  the  entrance  that  he  could  open 
the  door  by  a  shove  of  his  boot,  exerted  this  labor- 
saving  device  in  answer  to  her  knock,  and  glowered 
at  her  from  over  the  paper  he  was  reading. 


INFATUATION  173 

"  What  do  you  want  ?  "  demanded  the  ratty  in- 
dividual. 

"  I  have  an  appointment  with  Mr.  Adair." 
He  rose  without  a  word ;  and  leading  her  up  some 
steps,  guided  her  inside  the  theater.  In  the  twi- 
light of  the  wings  were  some  stage-hands  in  over- 
alls; an  actor  whom  she  recognized  as  the  wicked 
prince,  sitting  on  a  soap-box,  waiting  listlessly  for 
his  cue;  from  the  stage  itself  came  the  sound  of 
voices  raised  to  an  unreal  pitch,  and  strangely  ex- 
citing and  fantastic,  in  a  cadence  that  was  neither 
recitative  nor  speech.  She  could  not  help  noticing, 
even  in  her  agitation,  the  shabby,  dilapidated,  dis- 
orderly appearance  of  everything  —  the  ropes,  the 
dusty  props,  the  frayed  material  of  the  scenes,  the 
general  air  of  comfortlessness  —  receiving  the  shock 
that  comes  to  every  one  on  first  seeing  the  theater 
from  the  wrong  side.  But  the  ratty  individual  gave 
her  no  time  to  take  more  than  a  passing  glance, 
leading  the  way  with  whispered  warnings  through 
a  gorge  of  canvas,  and  down  a  twisting  iron  stair 
to  the  dressing-rooms  below.  He  stopped  at  one  of 
the  little  cabin-like  doors,  opened  it,  and  ushered 
her  in.  Then  he  left  her,  and  shuffled  away  with 
diminishing  footfalls. 


I74  INFATUATION 

The  dressing-room  was  bald,  bare,  uncarpeted, 
and  painted  a  staring  white.  Below  a  mirror 
flanked  by  two  flaring  gas-jets  there  ran  a  sort  of 
shelf  on  which  were  grease-paints,  crayons,  brushes, 
a  pot  of  cold-cream,  a  pot  of  rouge,  and  other  neces- 
saries for  "  making  up."  From  nails  on  the  wall 
—  common,  every-day  nails  —  there  straggled  an 
untidy  line  of  men's  clothes.  On  a  box  in  the  cor- 
ner was  a  wash-basin,  pitcher,  soap,  and  a  towel  that 
was  none  too  clean.  Three  empty  chairs,  and  a 
wall  decoration  completed  the  picture.  The  wall 
decoration  was  a  printed  notice,  in  large  and  em- 
phatic letters :  "  Smoking  positively  prohibited  in 
this  theater.  Ladies  must  not  use  alcohol  curling- 
irons." 

Most  young  women,  in  a  situation  so  equivocal 
and  so  unfamiliar,  would  have  been  ill  at  ease, 
frightened,  apprehensive  of  many  vague  and  dimly 
suspected  dangers.  But  Phyllis'  faith  in  Adair  had 
none  of  this  faltering  quality.  She  loved,  and  lov- 
ing she  trusted.  Her  tremors  had  ended  the  mo- 
ment the  door  had  closed  her  in  —  the  moment,  in 
fact,  when  the  others  would  have  trembled  most. 
To  her,  on  the  contrary,  the  little  room  breathed 
security  for  the  very  reason  that  it  was  Adair's. 


With  adorable  folly  she  pressed  kisses  on  all  his  outstretched  possessions. — / 


INFATUATION  175 

With  adorable  folly  she  pressed  kisses  on  all  his  out- 
stretched possessions;  nuzzled  her  cheek  against  his 
coat;  put  her  little  foot  beside  one  of  his  big  man's 
shoes,  delighting  in  the  contrast  —  and  altogether 
felt  greatly  comforted  and  refreshed. 

After  a  while  she  heard  a  tremendous  commo- 
tion overhead  that  swelled,  sank  and  swelled  again 
as  the  house  broke  into  applause  at  the  end  of  the 
act.  There  was  a  lumbering,  scratchy,  pattering 
sound  as  of  a  dozen  pianos  being  moved  at  once  by 
stalwart  men  in  slippers  —  it  was  the  new  scene 
being  set.  The  passageway  outside,  previously  so 
still,  resounded  with  a  rush  of  feet  —  with  exclama- 
tions and  laughter  as  the  company  scudded  to  make 
their  respective  changes.  The  door  was  flung  open, 
and  there,  brisk  and  smiling,  on  the  threshold  stood 
Correze ! 

Phyllis  ran  to  his  arms,  and  hiding  her  face 
against  him  began  to  cry.  She  was  so  happy,  so 
wretched;  the  misery  of  that  last  hour  had  tried 
her  more  than  she  knew;  her  joy  at  seeing  Adair 
seemed  to  exhaust  the  little  strength  she  had  left, 
and  her  conflicting  emotions  could  find  vent  only 
in  tears.  How  sweet  it  was  to  be  petted,  to  be 
soothed  —  to  feel  so  small,  and  weak,  and  helpless 


176  INFATUATION 

in  that  powerful  clasp!  Her  tears  flowed  afresh. 
Flowed  at  the  thought  of  her  love  for  him,  of  his 
love  for  her,  at  the  beauty,  wonder,  and  solace 
of  it  all.  Nothing  could  ever  harm  them  as  long 
as  they  had  each  other,  nothing,  nothing. 

She  made  him  take  a  chair,  and  seating  herself 
at  his  feet  crossed  her  arms  on  his  knees  and  looked 
up  at  him.  In  this  position  it  seemed  easier  to 
confide,  easier  to  answer  his  persistent  questions, 
easier  at  the  same  time  to  satisfy  her  craving  to 
nestle  close.  As  Adair  heard  of  the  letter  he 
turned  as  black  as  a  thunder-cloud  and  his  hands 
clenched. 

"  I  know  whom  I've  to  thank  for  that !  "  he  ex- 
claimed furiously.  "  The  damned  little  treacherous 
hound,  I  could  choke  her  for  it!  I've  seen  some- 
thing working  in  her  eyes  all  along,  but  I  never 
dreamed  she  could  be  as  low  and  contemptible  as 
that !  And  so  she  was  keeping  tab  on  us,  was  she, 
with  all  her  mean  little  eyes  and  ears,  the  dyed 
toad!" 

"  Cyril,  you  really  know  who  it  is  ?  " 

He  made  a  hissing  sound  —  a  disgusted  assent. 
"  She  isn't  twenty  feet  from  here,"  he  exclaimed, 


INFATUATION  177 

"  unless  she  is  at  the  key-hole  this  moment."  He 
rose ;  stepped  to  the  door,  and  looked  out.  "  Not 
here,"  he  said. 

"  But  tell  me,  is  she  one  of  the  actresses  in  the 
company  ?  " 

"  Never  you  mind,"  he  returned  roughly ;  and 
then,  with  a  quick  remorse  at  the  look  in  Phyllis' 
face,  he  apologized  in  a  roundabout  fashion  by  de- 
nouncing the  stage  in  general.  "  It's  a  low,  dirty 
business,"  he  cried,  "  and  the  people  in  it  are  a 
low,  dirty  lot ;  and  I  guess  I'm  not  so  damned  much 
better  myself;  and  if  you  had  a  spark  of  sense 
you'd  clear  out,  and  never  see  me  again !  Do  you 
hear  what  I'm  telling  you,  little  chap?  Do  you 
hear,  Phyllis  girl  ?  "  He  put  down  his  hand,  and 
caught  her  ear  between  his  thumb  and  finger,  giving 
it  a  shake.  "  Skin  out,  you  darling  baby.  Your 
father's  right.  Go  back  with  my  compliments,  and 
tell  him  I  said  so ! " 

His  jeering  tone  hurt  her;  there  was  too  much 
sincerity  in  his  selfLcontempt,  too  genuine  a  ring 
to  his  proposed  dismissal.  The  contradictory 
creature,  stung  to  the  quick  by  that  letter,  and 
indignantly  conscious  of  much  of  its  truth,  was 


178  INFATUATION 

floundering  towards  righteousness,  like  a  walrus 
after  a  floe.  Hell,  he  didn't  mean  her  any  harm. 
Let  her  get  out. 

"  You'd  better  hurry,"  he  said,  pinching  her  ear 
again.  "  I'm  just  a  cheap  actor,  as  common  as  the 
dirt  in  the  road,  and  you're  a  beautiful  young  lady 
a  million  times  too  good  for  this  kind  of  game. 
All  that  you  can  get  out  of  it  is  dishonor  and  dis- 
grace. Go  away  —  let's  drop  it  —  love  somebody 
who's  worth  loving." 

He  tried  to  push  her  from  him,  but  she  clung 
only  the  tighter,  her  face  paling  at  his  earnestness, 
and  stubbornly  looking  up  at  his. 

"  You  couldn't  say  that  if  you  were  —  what  you 
say  you  are." 

"  How  do  you  know  it  isn't  a  trick !  "  he  ex- 
claimed, "  just  another  move  in  the  game  —  just 
to  get  you  a  little  further  out  of  your  depth,  and 
then  drown  you  ? "  His  hands  closed  round  her 
neck  with  brutal  pleasure  in  her  youth,  her  soft- 
ness, her  delicacy,  her  powerlessness. 

"  It's  strange,"  he  said  wonderingly,  "  but  at 
this  moment  when  you  have  never  been  more  tempt- 
ing to  me,  I  am  willing  to  let  you  go  —  want  to  let 
you  go.  It's  the  first  good  resolution  in  my  life, 


INFATUATION  179 

yet  you  stick  here  like  an  infatuated  little  noodle, 
waiting  for  it  to  pass." 

She  snuggled  closer  against  him. 

"Am  I  tempting?" 

"  My  God,  yes." 

"  And  you  love  me  ?  " 

"Oh,  my  darling,  I  do,  I  do!" 

"  And  wouldn't  it  be  nice  for  a  poor  little  lone- 
some cheap  actor,  who's  really  a  great  big  splendid 
noble  person  of  genius,  if  he  only  knew  it  —  to 
have  me  to  pet  him  and  love  him  and  adore  him, 
and  kiss  away  his  morbid,  silly  moods,  and  make 
such  a  darling  baby  of  him  that  he'd  burst  out 
crying  if  I  were  out  of  his  sight  a  minute?  " 

He  looked  at  her  sharply  for  an  underlying  mean- 
ing —  a  comprehension  —  an  assent.  But  her  can- 
dor and  innocence  were  transparent;  the  purity  be- 
neath those  limpid  depths  shone  like  a  diamond  in 
a  pool.  Her  love  took  no  thought  of  anything 
base  or  wrong,  either  in  him  or  in  her;  all  she 
sought  was  the  assurance  that  he  loved  her,  and 
wanted  her;  and  this  achieved  she  was  content  to 
leave  the  rest  to  him  with  unquestioning  faith.  She 
did  not  come  of  the  class  to  whom  marriage  is 
vividly  seen  as  a  protection,  a  safe-guard,  a  coveted 


i8o  INFATUATION 

lien  on  a  pocket-book  and  a  man,  enforceable  by  the 
police;  to  her  it  was  more  one  of  those  inevitable 
formalities  that  attend  all  the  big  events  of  life, 
from  being  born  to  being  buried,  and  which  one 
accepts  as  a  matter  of  course. 

Adair,  in  a  gust  of  passion,  caught  her  up  on 
his  knees,  and  crushed  her  unresisting  body  in  his 
arms.  Everything  was  forgotten  in  the  maddening 
rapture  of  the  moment.  The  fragrance  of  her 
young  beauty  over-mastered  him.  His  head  reeled 
in  the  greatest  of  all  intoxications  —  the  woman- 
drunkenness  that  makes  men  crazy.  Between  his 
clenched  teeth  he  whispered :  "  You  are  mine,  and 
I  am  going  to.  keep  you  —  you  shall  never  get 
away  now.  You  had  your  chance,  but  it's  gone, 
fool  that  I  was  ever  to  offer  it.  But  now  I'll  kill 
you  first;  do  you  hear,  Phyllis,  I'll  kill  you  first, 
for  you're  mine,  body  and  soul,  and  you've  gone  too 
far  ever  to  draw  back."  His  voice  sank  lower;  he 
was  beside  himself;  all  he  knew  was  that  she  was 
shaking  convulsively  —  that  her  face,  her  lips  were 
burning  —  that  love,  shame,  devouring  fever  all 
flamed  in  the  eyes  she  tried  to  hide  from  him. 

A  knock  at  the  door  startled  him  to  his  feet. 
Rap,  rap,  rap! 


INFATUATION  181 

"  You're  called,  Mr.  Adair,"  said  the  voice  from 
without. 

"All  right,  Williams!" 

His  quick,  matter-of-fact  tone  was  as  much  a 
shock  to  Phyllis  as  the  interruption  itself.  To  fall 
from  the  clouds,  and  then  land  so  squarely  and 
coolly  on  the  earth  below  was  a  performance  dis- 
turbing to  witness.  It  seemed  to  cast  suspicion  on 
his  sincerity  up  above.  But  the  misgiving  was  a 
fleeting  one,  for  as  he  turned  to  her,  she  perceived 
in  his  air  of  concern  and  resolution  that  she  was 
still  the  dominant  thought  in  his  mind. 

"  See  here,  Phyllis,"  he  said,  speaking  fast,  "  this 
means  only  one  thing.  The  company  leaves  Sat- 
urday night  after  the  show  to  jump  to  Ferrisburg. 
You  must  come  with  me  —  that's  all  there  is  to 
it— Will  you?" 

She  bowed  her  head,  for  somehow  she  could 
not  answer  in  words. 

"  It  won't  do  for  us  to  see  each  other  till  then ; 
but  you  ring  me  up  on  Saturday  between  twelve 
and  one  at  the  St.  Charles  Hotel,  and  we'll  fix  up 
the  dates.  Have  you  got  that  straight?" 

She  bowed  her  head  again,  more  overcome  than 
ever. 


182  INFATUATION 

"  Don't  worry  about  a  trunk,  or  any  damned 
foolishness  of  that  sort.  Trunks  have  busted  more 
elopements  than  six-shooters  —  just  a  nightie  and 
a  tooth-brush,  and  we'll  manage  the  rest  at  Ferris- 
burg  !  "  His  glance  sought  for  some  evasion,  some 
backwardness,  but  there  was  neither. 

"  It's  the  only  thing  to  do,"  she  said  simply. 
"Only,  only  — "  She  was  holding  fast  to  his  hand, 
swaying  a  little. 

He  waited  for  some  objection;  some  silly,  fem- 
inine obstacle  — 

"  You  do  love  me,  don't  you  ? "  she  asked  as 
pleadingly  as  a  child.  "  If  you  love  me  I  could  do 
anything.  Tell  me  you  love  me,  Cyril." 

He  kissed  her  hastily,  saying  "  yes,"  and  again 
"  yes,"  and  ran  out  of  the  dressing-room.  A  thin 
deferential  man  peeped  in.  "  I'm  Mr.  Adair's 
dresser,  Miss,"  he  said.  "  He  told  me  to  show  you 
the  way  out.  If  you  would  be  so  good  as  to  fol- 
low me,  Miss." 

*••*•£•*•* 

"  Good-night,  Miss !  " 


CHAPTER  XV 

IN  the  meanwhile,  Mr.  Ladd,  closely  buttoned 
up  and  walking  to  keep  himself  warm,  rest- 
lessly paced  the  drive-way,  awaiting  Phyllis' 
return.  At  every  nearing  footfall  he  would  stiffen 
and  stop,  and  his  throat  would  contract  with  some- 
thing very  much  like  trepidation.  His  anger  was 
all  gone.  In  its  place  was  not  only  contrition  and 
self-reproach  for  having  shown  her  that  letter,  but 
a  very  real  alarm  of  the  situation  he  had  precipi- 
tated. He  had  been  inconceivably  stupid  —  incon- 
ceivably unkind  and  blundering.  He  had  driven 
the  girl  straight  into  the  fellow's  arms,  and  had 
now  doubled  what  he  had  to  undo.  Looking  back 
on  it  he  seemed  to  have  said  everything  he  ought 
not  to  have  said;  done  everything  he  ought  not  to 
have  done.  It  was  a  case  for  frankness,  tender- 
ness, and  considerate  understanding.  Hurry,  too, 
in  such  matters,  was  the  root  of  all  evil.  Romance, 
like  faith,  grew  with  persecution.  Gad,  if  she  really 

183 


184  INFATUATION 

thought  herself  in  love  with  this  egregious  actor, 
he  would  put  his  pride  in  his  pocket,  invite  him  to 
the  house,  pretend  to  like  him,  and  thus  earn  the 
right  to  stipulate  for  conventions  and  a  long  en- 
gagement. No  cruel  father  here,  but  a  cool  man 
of  the  world,  craftily  leaving  it  to  others  to  tittle- 
tattle,  to  disparage,  and  best  of  all  to  deride  with 
a  laughter  infinitely  more  effective  than  the  sternest 
and  angriest  of  arguments.  Yes,  that  was  the  pro- 
gram and  he  must  put  an  iron  hold  upon  himself 
to  see  that  he  did  not  swerve  from  it  by  a  hair. 

He  ran  forward  in  the  dark  as  he  heard  some  one 
coming,  and  recognized  Phyllis  dimly  against  the 
lighted  street  behind. 

"Phyllis!"  he  cried,  "Phyllis!"  and  he  caught 
her  hand  and  held  it.  Her  touch,  even  more  than 
her  silence,  told  him  how  estranged  they  were.  His 
agitation  paralyzed  his  tongue;  he  hardly  knew 
how  to  begin ;  he  murmured  under  his  breath,  "  For- 
give me,  forgive  me  " ;  and  then,  louder,  with  an 
uncontrollable  resentment  that  flashed  up  in  spite 
of  all  his  self-warnings :  "  Don't  deny  it  —  you've 
been  to  him !  " 

"  I  wasn't  going  to  deny  it,  Papa." 

"Where?     At  the  theater?" 


INFATUATION  185 

"  Yes." 

"  You  went  there  alone  —  not  even  a  maid  with 
you  ?  Have  you  parted  with  all  sanity  ?  " 

His  tone  was  overbearing,  harsh,  scornful. 
Alas,  for  his  good  and  wise  intentions!  In  the 
impact  of  two  stubborn  natures,  each  rousing  in 
the  other  an  invincible  antagonism,  there  could  be 
no  tenderness,  no  consideration.  Each  was  fight- 
ing with  the  flag  nailed  to  the  mast ;  she  for  Adair, 
he  for  his  daughter. 

"  It  was  your  doing,  Papa.  I  had  no  alterna- 
tive." 

"  Oh,  what  a  lie !  I'd  sooner  have  gone  with 
you  myself,  however  bitter  or  humiliating  it  might 
have  been  for  me." 

The  picture  of  such  an  escort  to  such  a  rendezvous 
made  her  laugh  in  spite  of  herself.  It  was  not  the 
kind  of  laughter  to  soften  or  turn  away  wrath.  To 
Ladd  it  seemed  heartlessness  itself. 

"  It's  unbelievable,"  he  broke  out,  "  my  God, 
Phyllis,  what  am  I  to  say  to  you?  Isn't  the  man 
self-condemned  on  the  face  of  it  —  with  his  closed 
cabs,  and  underhanded  meetings,  and  now  stripping 
you  of  every  rag  of  reputation  by  letting  you  come 
to  him  at  his  theater?  And  what  do  you  mean 


i86  INFATUATION 

by  the  theater,  anyhow  ?  —  His  dressing-room,  of 
course  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

Her  answer  wrung  a  groan  from  him. 

"  Phyllis,  Phyllis !  "  he  exclaimed.  Then  in  an 
altered  voice,  full  of  irritated  reasonableness,  he 
went  on :  "  Do  you  realize  that  we  could  have  had 
the  same  —  well,  disagreement  —  over  that  Pastor 
fellow  you  were  engaged  to?  Wouldn't  you  have 
been  just  as  wilful  in  his  case  —  just  as  sure? 
Wouldn't  it  have  been  the  same  with  Baron  von 
Filler  if  I  had  objected  violently  at  the  time  you 
engaged  yourself  to  him?  Look  back  on  both  these 
affairs.  You  aren't  altogether  a  fool.  Mayn't  this 
be  a  third  mistake  ?  " 

She  seized  his  hand  in  both  her  own,  and  squeezed 
it  with  all  her  strength. 

"  It's  because  I  love  him  like  that!  Not  the 
love  that  comes  of  compliments,  of  attentions  and 
flowers,  but  that!  —  But  of  course  you  don't  under- 
stand—  you  can't." 

Mr.  Ladd  ignored  this  slight  on  his  more  lim- 
ited knowledge,  though  his  lip  curled  sardonically 
under  his  mustache. 

"  I  am  more  concerned  in  how  he  loves  you,"  he 


INFATUATION  187 

said.     "  He's  acting  like  a  cad,  and  you  know  it." 

"Papa!" 

His  voice  outrang  hers.  "  Love,"  he  cried,  with 
piercing  contempt,  "  that  kind  of  love  is  the  com- 
monest thing  there  is.  There  isn't  a  drab  on  the 
streets  who  hasn't  tasted  it  to  the  dregs.  God 
help  you  when  you  wake  up,  and  see  this  man  as 
he  is  —  schemer,  scoundrel,  blackguard.  Do  you 
think  I  don't  know?  Do  you  think  I  haven't  run 
across  hundreds?  Do  you  think  I'm  going  to  let 
an  adventurer  like  that  get  his  hooks  into  you, 
and  drag  you  down  into  his  own  filthy  mire? 
You're  the  only  thing  I  have  in  life ;  I  live  for  you ; 
there  isn't  an  hour  of  the  day  when  you're  not  in 
my  mind.  You  can't  dismiss  all  this  at  the  nod  of 
a  stranger.  It  carries  its  obligations  —  for  you, 
too;  the  obligation  of  more  than  twenty  years;  not 
for  feeding  and  clothing  you,  I  don't  mean  anything 
so  banal  —  but  the  deeper  one  of  a  love  that  has 
kept  you  warm  and  happy  —  that  has  grown  with- 
out your  knowing  it  to  be  a  very  part  of  you,  as 
it  is  all  of  me." 

Had  he  stopped  there  the  harm  might  still  have 
been  undone.  But  with  a  perversity  inexplicable 
at  that  moment  when  the  tide  had  turned,  and  re- 


i88  INFATUATION 

sponsive  tears  were  streaming  down  those  girlish 
cheeks,  he  had  a  sudden  outburst  of  rancor  that 
destroyed  everything  he  had  gained. 

"  To  think  that  anybody  named  Cyril  Adair  — 
my  God,  Cyril  Adair,  with  its  suggestion  of  sticky 
sweetness,  and  tinsel,  and  footlights,  and  mock 
heroics  —  could  come  between  two  sane,  grown-up 
people  like  you  and  me! — Cyril  Adair!"  he  re- 
peated, and  laughed  mirthlessly. 

There  was  nothing  he  could  have  urged  against 
Adair  that  could  have  hurt  her  more.  A  young 
and  devoted  woman  can  always  find  excuses  for 
her  lover's  past.  It  belongs  to  a  time  before  her 
little  hand  had  been  stretched  out  to  save  him, 
before  she  had  brought  hope  and  light  to  one  who 
had  never  known  either,  and  had  consequently  — 
and  naturally  —  abandoned  himself  to  despair. 
With  a  feeling  surely  divine,  and  often  justified  by 
results,  she  never  doubts  her  ability  to  wash  that 
black  sheep  to  the  fleecy  whiteness  of  her  own  dainty 
wool.  But  poor  Cyril's  name  was  a  very  different 
matter;  it  was  worse  in  its  pinchbeck  and  aristocratic 
pretensions,  and  school-girl-novel  picturesqueness 
than  the  most  crimson  of  sins.  It  would  still  be 
stamped  on  the  luckless  sheep  after  he  had  been 


INFATUATION  189 

whitened  as  white  as  snow  —  the  Scarlet  Letter  of 
vulgarity,  so  to  speak  —  affronting  good  taste  on 
every  hill-side.  Nothing  more  showed  the  degree 
of  Phyllis'  infatuation  than  that  she  had  been  able 
to  tolerate  this  name;  and  now,  to  have  it  flung  in 
her  face,  with  an  emphasis  so  sneering  —  the  one 
taunt  for  which  she  had  no  answer  —  was  more  than 
she  felt  herself  able  to  bear. 

She  drooped  beside  her  father,  realizing  the 
futility  of  any  further  argument,  and  of  a  sudden 
so  tired  that  the  woes  of  the  world  seemed  to  be 
on  her  shoulders.  Her  voice,  when  at  last  she 
broke  the  silence,  was  weary,  though  with  none 
of  the  weariness  of  surrender,  but  rather  that  of  a 
settled  and  altogether  sad  determination. 

"  We  seem  to  have  said  all  there  is  to  say  — 
good  night,  Papa." 

He  would  have  detained  her,  but  she  moved  away 
from  him,  and  preceded  him  into  the  house.  He 
followed,  respecting  her  wish  to  terminate  the 
scene.  He  was  weary,  too,  and  no  less  willing  to 
te  alone.  He  had  to  think  and  to  act,  and  much 
had  to  be  done  that  night. 

They  met  at  breakfast  as  usual.     She  kissed  him 


190  INFATUATION 

dutifully,  and  poured  out  his  coffee  as  though  this 
Wednesday  morning  was  no  different  from  any 
other  Wednesday  morning.  They  talked  on  in- 
different subjects  until  the  servants  had  left  them. 
Then  the  suspended  battle  was  renewed. 

"  My  dear,"  said  Mr.  Ladd,  with  an  uncertain 
smile,  "  I  am  thinking  of  sending  you  on  a  visit 
to  your  Aunt  Sarah's.  It  will  be  better  for  both 
of  us  to  stay  apart  for  a  time,  and  see  matters  with 
a  little  more  calmness  and  —  consideration  for  each 
other.  There's  no  sense  in  being  over-hasty,  and 
making  momentous  resolutions  in  this  twinkling-of- 
an-eye-  sort  of  way.  There's  lots  of  time  —  oceans 
of  time.  You  may  change,  I  may  change  —  for  I 
don't  set  up  to  be  inflexible,  and  neither  do  you. 
Yes,  you'll  go  to  your  Aunt  Sarah's,  and  then  to 
Paris  with  her  if  you  like,  or  Monte  Carlo.  I  guess 
I  can  fix  it  up  to  the  nines,  even  to  a  look-in  at 
Paquin's,  and  one  of  those  expensive  strolls  down 
the  Rue  de  La  Paix.  Go  ahead  —  why  not  ?  " 

"  I'd  rather  stay  here,  Papa." 

"  Phyllis,  this  is  a  request  —  a  favor  to  me.  I 
want  you  to." 

"When?" 

"  Why  not  the  noon  train  ?     I've  taken  a  draw- 


INFATUATION  191 

ing-room  for  you,  and  a  berth  for  your  maid  — 
and  Sarah's  expecting  you." 

"You  told  her?" 

He  made  no  attempt  to  avoid  the  implication  of 
her  eyes. 

"  No,"  he  replied.  "  No,  I  don't  believe  in  roar- 
mg  out  your  troubles  over  the  long  distance  'phone. 
It  was  enough  to  call  it  an  impulse.  With  you,  my 
dear,  that  is  always  a  sufficient  reason." — They 
both  laughed,  and  Mr.  Ladd's  anxious  cordiality 
redoubled  at  so  favorable  a  symptom.  "  If  it's  the 
real  thing,  Phyllis,  time  won't  hurt  it." 

"  It  is  the  real  thing,  Papa." 

"But  you  will  go?" 

"  No." 

"  Phyllis,  I  insist." 

"  I'm  sorry,  but  it's  impossible." 

"  You  have  to.     You  must." 

"I  won't!" 

It  is  the  terrible  part  of  stereotyped  situations  that 
people  will  make  use  of  the  stereotyped  expressions 
that  go  with  them.  Mr.  Ladd  was  the  kindest  and 
most  devoted  father  on  earth,  yet  the  venerable  for- 
mula rose  to  his  lips :  "  You  defy  me  under  my 
own  roof  ?  " 


192  INFATUATION 

It  of  course  forced  out  the  stereotyped  reply: 
"  I  can  leave  it." 

Mr.  Ladd,  in  silence,  looked  at  her  long  and 
steadily;  then  he  bent  his  head.  She  saw  nothing 
but  the  iron-gray  hair;  the  stooping,  dejected 
shoulders;  the  hand,  lying  as  limp  as  dead,  on  the 
damask  cloth. 

"Papa?" 

No  answer. 

"Papa?" 

She  ran  to  his  side,  all  revolt  gone,  her  only 
thought  to  comfort  him.  Her  bare  arms  entwined 
themselves  about  his  neck  in  a  paroxysm  of  re- 
morse ;  her  bosom  swelled ;  her  voice  was  incoherent 
as  she  lavished  her  young  tenderness  upon  him.  It 
was  a  moment  that  would  decide  her  life.  Had 
her  father  left  the  initiative  to  her,  had  he  been 
content  to  accept  mutely  these  tokens  of  her  surren- 
der —  he  would  have  won,  then  and  there,  and  noth- 
ing again  would  ever  have  come  between  them. 
But  with  blind  stupidity  he  had  to  persevere  with 
the  intention  their  clash  had  interrupted. 

"  I  will  tell  you  my  real  reason  for  wanting  you 
to  get  away,"  he  said.  "  It  wasn't  what  you 
thought  at  all  —  it  was  to  spare  you  unnecessary 


INFATUATION  193 

pain.  Last  night  I  sent  Reynolds,  our  best  secret- 
service  man,  to  New  York  with  carte  blanche  to 
confer  with  the  Pinkertons  and  ransack  this  fel- 
low's record  from  top  to  bottom.  From  what  Rey- 
nolds told  me  he  already  knew  —  I  mean  what's 
said  down-town,  I  believe  it  will  be  a  black  one,  so 
black  that  there  won't  be  any  question  about  your 
giving  him  up  —  just  on  the  facts  brought  out  — 
facts  that  can  not  be  disproved  or  contested.  Rey- 
nolds—" 

"  But,  Papa,  I  don't  understand.  You  are  set- 
ting detectives  to  go  back  over  his  life,  like  a  crim- 
inal ?  Detectives? " 

"  Yes." 

"  But  how  dishonorable,  how  infamous !  " 

"  Oh,  it's  done  every  day;  it's  common,  my  dear; 
if  the  man's  straight  it  can't  hurt  him  —  but  if 
he  has  anything  to  hide,  why,  we  turn  on  the  search- 
light, and  find  out  what's  wrong. —  It's  all  done 
secretly;  he  won't  know;  don't  worry  about  that. 
—  I  expect  a  full  report  in  a  few  days,  and  would 
rather  not  have  you  here  when  I  get  it." 

"  And  do  you  think  that's  fair  or  right,  or  any- 
thing but  —  fiendish  ?  " 

"  How  do  you  know  he  isn't  married,  Phyllis  ?  " 


I94  INFATUATION 

—  he  shot  this  at  her  mercilessly.  "  How  do  you 
know  anything  except  what  he's  told  you?  You 
may  be  willing  to  believe  him,  and  all  that  —  but 
I'm  your  father,  and  I  want  to  know,  and  by  God, 
I'm  going  to  know !  " 

"Papa,  don't!" 

"Aha,  you're  not  very  confident,  are  you?" 

"  He's  a  man.  I  don't  doubt  he's  been  foolish, 
and  bad,  and  fast,  but  to  see  it  written  down  cold- 
bloodedly on  sheets  of  paper  is  more  than  I  can 
bear.  I  am  willing  to  ignore  that;  I  am  willing 
to  take  him  as  he  is  now.  Oh,  Papa,  a  woman 
can  forgive  so  much." 

"  Yes,  my  dear,  and  a  great  deal  that  a  father 
never  could." 

"  I  beg  you,  Papa,  I  implore  you  to  telegraph  to 
them  to  stop." 

"  It's  too  late  —  besides  it  has  to  be  done ;  I 
insist  on  it;  I'm  going  to  strip  that  man's  past  to 
the  bone." 

"  Even  if  it  costs  you  me?  Even  if  this  is  the 
end  of  everything  between  us  ?  " 

"  Fiddle-de-dee,  these  theatrics  are  unworthy  of 
you!  You're  going  to  take  the  noon  train  to 
Sarah's,  and  behave  yourself;  and  this  business, 


INFATUATION  195 

however  disagreeable  to  both  of  us,  has  got  to  go 
through." 

Her  lips  tightened  mutinously.  She  was  not  a 
young  woman  who  could  be  driven. 

"  I'll  stay  here,  or  walk  right  out  of  your  house 
—  and  you  know  where." 

"  Then  stay,"  he  cried,  rising  wrathfully,  "  and 
may  God  forgive  you  for  the  misery  you  are  bring- 
ing down  on  me.  I'm  only  trying  to  do  what's 
best,  and  you  treat  me  as  though  I  was  one  of  that 
fellow's  cruel  parents  on  the  stage!  It's  no  time 
to  mince  matters,  and  I  tell  you  straight  out,  Phyllis, 
he's  a  blackguard  and  a  scoundrel,  and  when  you 
see  the  Pinkertons'  report,  I  guess  you'll  go  down 
on  your  knees  and  beg  my  pardon  for  your  heart- 
lessness  and  obstinacy." 

He  glared  at  her,  expecting  a  retort  that  would 
add  fresh  fuel  to  his  anger,  but  she  was  silent,  down- 
cast, trembling.  The  answer  she  made  was  to  her- 
self, inaudible  save  to  her  anguished  soul :  "  Oh, 
that  Saturday  night  were  here ! " 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  four  days  that  followed  were  almost 
unendurable  in  the  strain  they  entailed, 
Phyllis  was  heavy  with  her  secret;  beset 
by  emotions  so  conflicting  that  they  seemed  to  rend 
her  to  pieces;  forlorn  and  desolate  under  her  fa- 
ther's studied  coldness.  The  detectives'  report  did 
not  come,  or  was  withheld  perhaps, —  but  the  ap- 
prehension of  it  was  always  hanging  horribly 
above  her  head.  It  was  not  the  facts  themselves 
she  feared  most,  though  she  dreaded  them,  too; 
it  was  to  hear  them  tauntingly  on  her  father's  lips ; 
to  be  forced  to  stand,  and  listen,  and  cringe  at  what 
the  human  ferrets  had  unearthed. —  Anxious  days ; 
leaden  days;  sad,  introspective,  interminable  days, 
never  to  be  recalled  in  after  life  without  a  peculiar 
depression. 

On  Saturday,  at  the  stroke  of  noon,  she  was  in 
a  telephone  booth,  with  shivers  cascading  down  her 
back,  and  the  eagerest  heart  in  Carthage  thumping 

196 


INFATUATION  197 

under  her  breast.  In  the  time  she  took  to  get  her 
number,  she  had  decided  to  go,  not  to  go  —  then 
again  to  go,  then  again  not  to  go.  It  was  awful, 
and  she  couldn't ;  it  was  awful,  and  she  would ! 

"  Hello,  is  that  the  St.  Charles  Hotel?  " 

"Yes,  Chincholchell,  whodyerwant  ?  " 

"Mr.  Cyril  Adair?" 

"  Hold  the  line." 

He  must  have  been  waiting  there  for  his  voice 
answered  immediately,  abrupt  and  deep :  "  Hello, 
is  that  you  ?  " 

"  Yes, —  you  know  who." 

"Is  it  all  right  —  you  are  coming?" 

"  If  you  want  me  to." 

His  only  answer  to  that  was  a  laugh  that  shook 
the  wire.  How  manly  and  confident  it  sounded  in 
contrast  to  her  own  quavering  whisper! 

"  Now,  listen,  you  darling  baby,  and  get  this 
right.  We're  to  pick  up  the  Alleghany  local  at  ten 
minutes  past  midnight,  and  at  half-past  eleven  I'll 
have  Tom  Merguelis  waiting  for  you  in  a  cab,  across 
the  Avenue  on  the  southeastern  corner.  Can  you 
manage  to  get  out  of  the  house,  do  you  think  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes." 


198  INFATUATION 

"  No  trunk,  you  know  —  just  the  few  things  you 
need,  and  the  fewer  the  better." 

"  I  understand." 

"  Find  Tom  —  that's  all  you  have  to  do  —  and 
the  rest  is  for  him." 

"  Yes,  Cyril." 

"  Say  it  as  though  you  meant  it !  I'd  rather 
have  you  back  out  now  than  fail  me  at  the  last 
moment.  That's  an  awful  faint  '  yes.'  ' 

"Don't  blame  me  if  I'm  scared  —  you'd  be 
scared  too,  in  my  place." 

"  Well,  how  scared  are  you  going  to  be  at  half- 
past  eleven  —  that's  the  real  point  of  it  ?  " 

"Cyril,  dearest?" 

"  Yes,  my  darling." 

"  I'm  coming,  I  want  to  come,  I'm  crazy  to  come 
—  and  you  mustn't  think  for  a  single  moment  that 
I  won't" 

"That's  the  way  to  talk!" 

"  And  you'll  be  good  to  me,  won't  you  ?  " 

"  My  precious !  " 

"And  love  me,  oh,  so  well?" 

"Yes,  yes!" 

"  And  I'll  try  to  be  the  best  little  wife  that  ever 
made  a  man  warm,  and  comfortable,  and  happy  — 


INFATUATION  199 

and  I'm  going  to  keep  your  heart-buttons  sewed 
on  as  well  as  the  others  —  and  darn  your  beautiful 
big  soul  with  girl-silk  —  and  dress  you  every  day 
in  a  lovely  new  suit  of  kisses,  so  that  people  will 
turn  round  on  the  street,  and  ask  who's  your  tailor ! 
And  Cyril?" 

"Yes,  sweetheart?" 

"  I'm  the  happiest  girl  in  the  world,  and  the 
luckiest!  And  I'm  not  scared  a  bit,  and  I'll  be 
there  at  half -past  eleven,  and  I  love  you,  and  I'm 
going  to  run  away  with  you;  and  I'm  glad  I'm  go- 
ing to  run  away  with  you,  and  I'm  twenty-one, 
and  my  own  mistress,  and  as  bold  as  brass,  and  six 
policemen  couldn't  stop  me,  and  I'm  just  a  little 
slave  panting  for  her  master,  and  I've  gnawed  the 
ropes  through  with  my  teeth,  and  no  one  shall  ever 
tie  me  up  again,  or  keep  me  away  from  you, 
Amen!" 

Again  there  was  that  manly,  confident  laugh. 

"  I  think  that  little  slave  had  better  run  home 
again  and  pretend  to  tie  up,"  he  said.  "  It  would 
spoil  everything  if  your  father  got  wind  of  this 
—  I  know  those  rich  old  fellows  —  they  can  be  a 
power  for  mischief  whether  the  law  is  on  their 
side  or  not.  Good-by,  my  darling,  take  care  of 


200  INFATUATION 

yourself,  and  look  out  for  Tommy  at  eleven  thirty. 
Good-by!" 

"  I  hope  we  will  never  say  that  word  to  each 
other  again,"  exclaimed  Phyllis.  "  It's  a  horrid 
word  and  I  hate  it.  Good-by,  Cyril,  and  don't 
forget  your  little  slave,  counting  the  minutes  at 
home!" 

"  Ta,  ta,  my  lamb,  I  won't  forget  her.  Couldn't 
if  I  would,  ta,  ta!" 

There  is  no  harder  task  than  to  fold  one's  hands 
and  wait.  Adair  had  his  matinee  and  his  evening 
performance  to  engross  his  thoughts,  and  allay  to 
some  degree  his  fever  of  anticipation.  But  Phyllis 
had  no  such  resource.  Restless,  nervous,  on  edge 
with  suspense  —  fits  of  joy  alternating  with  craven 
terror  —  she  wore  out  the  longest  afternoon  of  her 
life,  and  an  evening  that  was  more  trying  still. 
Her  father,  to  make  matters  worse,  attempted  some 
advances;  spoke  to  her  with  unexpected  kindness; 
hovered  on  the  brink  of  another  appeal.  What  a 
little  Judas  she  felt,  sitting  opposite  him  for  per- 
haps the  last  time,  and  maintaining  a  constraint 
that  was,  indeed,  her  armor,  for  if  she  responded 
at  all  she  knew  she  would  never  go  that  night. 
So  she  parried  and  fenced,  and  kept  the  convex 


INFATUATION  201 

sation  impersonal  at  any  hazard,  while  his  face 
grew  steadily  more  overcast,  and  the  lines  of  his 
forehead  deepened.  She  excused  herself  early, 
pleading  fatigue,  and  relaxed  her  attitude  to  kiss 
him  tenderly  good  night. 

"  It'll  all  come  right  before  long,"  she  murmured 
softly.  "  Good  night,  my  darling  daddy,  and  re- 
member I  love  you  whatever  happens." 

She  was  off  before  he  could  take  advantage  of  a 
mood  so  melting.  But  he  felt  much  consoled,  nev- 
ertheless. 

"  She's  coming  round,"  he  said  to  himself.  "  I 
might  have  known  she  would.  That's  the  com- 
fort of  her  being  such  a  good  girl,  and  so  intelli- 
gent!" 

Up-stairs,  the  young  lady  thus  complacently  de- 
scribed was  stripping  off  her  dinner  gown,  and  won- 
dering what  dress  she  would  replace  it  with.  She 
was  the  daintiest  of  soubrettes  in  her  long  dark- 
red  silk  stockings,  and  Watch,  her  Russian  poodle, 
gazed  at  her  with  an  approving,  first-row-of-the- 
orchestra  expression  that  made  him  look  too  wicked 
and  dissipated  for  anything.  She  gave  him  a  gen- 
tle kick  on  the  nose  to  remind  him  that  staring 
wasn't  gentlemanly,  and  finally  chose  a  blue  tailor- 


202  INFATUATION 

made  by  Redfern.  When  this  was  on,  the  rest  of 
her  preparations  were  easy.  She  could  not  well 
take  Watch,  so  she  took  his  collar,  and  this  was 
the  first  to  go  into  the  little  hand-bag.  A  night- 
gown followed,  a  pair  of  stockings,  tooth-brush, 
comb  and  brush,  tooth-powder,  some  handkerchiefs, 
the  photographs  of  her  father  and  mother,  still  in 
their  frames,  and  a  pair  of  patent  leather  slippers 
with  gilt  buckles.  Surely  no  little  bride  of  her  im- 
portance and  social  position  had  ever  set  forth 
with  so  slender  a  trousseau.  There  it  all  was,  dog- 
collar  below,  slippers  on  top,  in  a  bag  no  bigger 
than  an  exaggerated  purse.  She  smiled  a  little 
tremulously  as  she  looked  at  it,  touched  as  only  a 
woman  could  be  by  the  magnitude  of  her  sacrifice. 
Her  clothes  and  her  father  —  tears  for  both,  thus 
equally  abandoned,  suffused  her  eyes. 

The  next  thing  was  a  note  of  farewell,  to  be 
found  the  following  morning  on  her  unused  pil- 
low. "I  am  going  away  with  Mr.  Adair,"  she 
wrote,  "  taking  my  own  life  in  my  own  hands  for 
better  or  worse.  Whether  we  are  to  be  friends  — 
you  and  I  —  depends  entirely  upon  yourself,  al- 
though alienation  from  you  will  be  very  hard  for 
me  to  bear.  Forgive  me  if  you  can,  and  do  not 


INFATUATION  203 

let  your  disappointment  and  chagrin  embitter  you 
against  me;  or  what  would  hurt  me  almost  as 
much  —  against  him.  To-night  when  I  kissed  you 
it  was  good-by,  and  if  it  is  for  ever  it  will  be  your 
own  fault,  and  very,  very  cruel,  for  I  love  you, 
dearest  father,  I  love  you.  Ever  your  devoted 
Phyllis." 

By  half-past  nine  everything  was  ready;  and  it 
was  with  a  consuming  impatience  that  she  went  into 
her  boudoir  with  Watch,  and  ensconsed  herself  on 
the  sofa  to  wait.  A  confidential  Russian  poodle 
can  be  of  great  help  to  a  young  lady  in  distress. 
Watch's  sympathy ;  Watch's  certainty  of  everything 
coming  out  right ;  Watch's  implied  determination  to 
soften  the  blow  to  Mr.  Ladd;  Watch's  willingness 
to  whine  over  the  general  tragedy  of  things  —  all 
were  whimsically  comforting.  Best  of  all,  he  could 
listen  for  ever  and  ever  with  one  ear  cocked  up, 
and  never  lose  for  an  instant  his  air  of  highly  grat- 
ified interest.  And  what  didn't  he  hear  during  that 
hour  and  three  quarters  on  the  sofa!  What  se- 
crets of  longing  and  tenderness,  of  girlish  hopes, 
of  girlish  dreams,  of  delicious  falterings  and  trepi- 
dations—  all  breathed  into  that  woolly  ear! 

Then  came  the  suffocating  moment  of  departure 


204  INFATUATION 

—  the  quieting  of  an  unruly  friend  —  the  peeping 
from  the  door;  the  tip-toeing  down  the  stairs;  the 
panicky  stops  to  cower  and  listen ;  the  stealthy  pas- 
sage of  the  great  dim  hall;  the  groping  for  bolts 
and  chains;  the  heavy  door  swinging  heavily  back; 
the  cold,  dark,  starry  night  beyond;  the  egress  into 
it ;  the  wild  sense  of  escape  and  freedom ;  the  sound 
of  gravel  under  the  eager  little  feet;  the  gate-way; 
the  wide  silent  Avenue;  the  glimmering  lights  of 
the  cab  at  the  farther  corner ;  and  — 

"Yes,  I'm  Tom  Merguelis,  Miss.  Jump  in  — 
everything  is  ready." 

She  discovered  herself  sitting  beside  a  very  tall, 
very  thin  young  man,  who  smiled  down  at  her  in  a 
quizzical,  friendly  manner  not  unsuggestive  of  the 
Cheshire  Cat.  That  vague,  deprecatory  grin  was 
as  much  a  part  of  Mr.  Merguelis  as  his  sandy  hair, 
his  retreating  chin,  and  the  whole  amiable  vacancy 
of  his  expression.  His  youth  had  been  passed  be- 
fore the  public  as  "  assistant  "  to  Professor  Theo- 
philus  Blitz,  the  exhibiting  hypnotist,  who  was 
accustomed  nightly  to  run  pins  into  him ;  make  him 
drink  kerosene  under  the  impression  it  was  beer; 
smack  his  lips  over  furniture-polish ;  eat  potato  peel- 
ings for  sausages ;  bark  like  a  dog,  meow  like  a  cat, 


INFATUATION  205 

make  love  to  a  bolster,  and  generally  disport  him- 
self to  the  astonishment  and  horror  of  clodhopper 
audiences.  Six  years  of  this  had  left  Tommy  with- 
out a  digestion,  and  that  fixed  and  bewildered  grin, 
which  to  Phyllis,  under  the  unusual  circumstances 
of  their  meeting,  seemed  to  her  not  without  a  satiric 
quality. 

But  as  they  drove  through  the  deserted  streets 
she  realized  her  mistake,  and  corrected  so  unjust 
a  first  impression.  The  artless,  gawky  creature 
idolized  Adair,  and  was  proud  beyond  measure  to 
be  serving  him  so  romantically.  It  gave  him  an 
extraordinary  fellow-feeling  for  Phyllis  to  have  her 
also  on  her  knees  at  the  shrine  of  the  demigod ;  and 
he  overflowed  with  a  hero-worship  so  naive  and 
sincere  that  she  could  not  help  liking  him  —  grin 
and  all.  Indeed,  it  seemed  a  happy  augury  for  her 
own  future  that  Adair  could  excite  so  profound  an 
admiration  in  those  about  him.  Mr.  Merguelis 
seemed  as  infatuated  as  she,  and  saw  nothing 
strange  in  these  midnight  proceedings.  There  was 
approval  in  that  everlasting  grin.  Would  she  please 
call  him  Tommy?  Mr.  Adair  called  him  Tommy. 
They  shook  hands  on  it  in  the  semi-darkness,  and 
she  knew  she  had  found  a  friend. 


206  INFATUATION 

Phyllis  expected  that  Cyril  would  be  waiting  for 
her  at  the  station,  and  was  much  cast  down  to  learn 
that  she  was  to  remain  alone  with  Tommy  until 
the  train  arrived.  "  Then  we'll  all  bustle  on  board 
together,  and  nobody  will  notice  you,"  explained 
Tommy.  The  good  sense  of  this  was  apparent, 
yet  at  the  same  time  she  could  not  help  feeling 
a  little  forlorn  and  slighted.  "  Nobody  will  notice 
you,"  said  Young  Lochinvar's  Tommy. —  Now  that 
the  die  was  cast,  why  should  she  not  be  noticed? 
She  was  ready  to  avow  herself  Adair's  before  all 
the  world,  and  why  not  on  that  dark,  ill-lighted 
platform,  when  her  courage  was  nearly  spent  and 
her  slim  young  body  drooping? 

They  sat  on  a  bench,  and  waited  in  a  corner  of 
the  vast  cavern,  she  with  her  bag  in  her  lap,  Tommy 
with  his  unrelaxing  grin  fixed  on  space.  Waited 
and  waited,  while  stragglers  passed,  immigrants 
with  babies  and  bundles,  hurrying  couples  return- 
ing to  the  suburbs  from  a  night  in  town.  Above 
the  noise  there  suddenly  rose  a  louder  thunder.  It 
was  the  train  bursting  in  with  a  roar,  hissing  steam 
and  grinding  its  brakes  as  it  slowed  down,  throb- 
bing majestically.  Tommy  seized  her  by  the  arm 
and  ran  along  the  platform. 


INFATUATION  207 

"  Day  car  reserved  for  Steinberger's  theatrical 
company  ?  " 

"  Third  car  back." 

"  Day  car  reserved  for  Steinberger's  theatrical 
company  ?  " 

"Jump  in!" 

Others  were  scrambling  in,  too.  Phyllis  had  a 
fleeting  glimpse  of  Miss  de  Vere,  still  with  dabs  of 
make-up  on  her  sulky,  handsome  face ;  of  the  wicked 
Prince,  loaded  down  with  baggage,  and  excitedly 
taking  the  direction  of  everything  on  his  shoulders ; 
of  a  stout,  authoritative  Jew  with  a  diamond  pin, 
who  was  staring  at  her  with  a  greedy  curiosity, 
and  that  cattleman's  look,  as  of  one  who  could  tell 
the  shape,  age,  attractiveness,  and  market  value  of 
a  human  heifer  at  a  single  glance.  They  jostled 
into  the  empty  car,  a  dozen  or  more,  settling  them- 
selves anywhere,  anyhow,  like  a  big  boisterous 
family.  Tommy  and  Phyllis  slipped  into  a  seat  at 
the  farther  end,  and  they  had  hardly  done  so  be- 
fore the  latter  felt  a  hand  reach  over  and  touch  her 
cheek;  and  turning,  saw  Adair!  Tommy  sprang 
up,  and  made  way  for  him,  Adair  taking  the  vacated 
place  as  though  by  right. 

Whatever  pique  she  might  have  held  against  him 


2o8  INFATUATION 

vanished  in  the  magic  of  his  presence.  His  hand, 
closing  on  hers,  communicated  peace  and  resolution. 
No  longer  was  she  afraid,  or  lonely,  or  sad,  or  un- 
easily conscious  of  those  other  prying  and  speculat- 
ing occupants  of  the  car.  The  goal  was  attained; 
stronger  shoulders  than  her  own  now  lifted  her 
burden;  she  had  run  her  race,  and  could  now  lie, 
all  spent  and  weary,  in  that  haven  of  heart's  con- 
tent. His  musical  voice  flowed  on  in  caressing 
cadences.  Had  Tommy  carried  out  his  instruc- 
tions? Had  Tommy  explained  the  need  of  an  un- 
obtrusive departure,  so  that  any  chance  reporter  or 
busybody  might  be  put  off  the  scent  ?  —  Oh,  the 
poor  baby,  how  neglected  she  must  have  felt,  on 
this  the  night  of  nights;  how  utterly  ignored  and 
forgotten ! 

He  drew  her  head  against  his  cheap  fur  coat,  and 
stroked  her  cheek  and  tresses  —  his  sweetheart,  his 
darling,  his  little  bride !  It  was  sweet  to  be  petted ; 
sweeter  still  to  enjoy  the  luxury  of  self-pity  as  he 
expatiated  with  smiling  exaggeration  on  her  sad, 
miserable,  wretched  waiting  with  Tommy,  in  the 
sad,  miserable,  wretched  station!  She  closed  her 
sleepy  eyes,  and  nestled  closer,  awake  only  to  catch 
every  soft  word  of  endearment.  Of  these  she  could 


INFATUATION  209 

not  have  enough.  It  was  heavenly  to  doze  away 
with :  "  I  love  you,  I  love  you,  I  love  you,"  fall- 
ing in  that  insatiable  little  ear;  heavenly  to  feel  that 
big  hand  playing  with  her  hair,  and  tempting  kisses 
as  it  lingered  against  her  mouth;  heavenly  to  feel 
so  weak,  and  small,  and  helpless,  and  tired  against 
that  muscular  arm.  Divine  mystery  of  love!  Di- 
vine the  dependence  of  woman  on  man,  of  man  on 
woman,  neither  complete  without  the  other,  and 
each  so  different  .  .  .  "My  little  bride" 
.  .  .  "  I  love  you,  ...  I  love  you,  .  .  . 
I  love  you  .  .  ." 

The  train  rumbled  through  the  darkness.  The 
seats  held  the  huddled  figures  of  the  company,  all 
as  limp  as  sacks,  as  oblivion  stole  upon  them.  Feet 
were  cocked  up;  hats  were  pulled  over  brows;  hag- 
gard women,  pale  men,  sprawling  in  disorder,  and 
through  long  familiarity  as  unrestrained  as  some 
low,  coarse  family  —  sloppy  slippers  and  frank 
stockings  to  the  garter;  unbuttoned  collars,  unbut- 
toned vests ;  dirty  cuffs  on  racks  —  the  squalid  evi- 
dences of  a  squalid  intimacy. 

Looking  down  at  that  pure  profile,  and  inhaling 
with  every  breath  the  fragrance  of  an  exquisite 
young  womanhood  which  would  be  his  so  soon  to 


take,  and,  if  he  wished,  to  fling  away,  shattered 
and  destroyed  beyond  all  mending,  Adair  felt,  with 
dawning  comprehension,  and  mingled  elation  and 
pain,  all  that  had  gone  to  put  this  creature  so  in- 
finitely above  him. 

What  care,  what  money,  what  anxious  thought 
had  been  lavished  to  make  her  what  she  was. 
How  incessant  the  effort;  how  jealous  the  guard- 
ing through  all  these  years;  how  elaborate  and 
costly  the  training  to  fit  her  for  the  proud,  high 
position  to  which  she  had  been  born.  It  came 
over  him  with  a  strange  new  perception  that  the 
very  innocence  of  her  surrender  was  but  another 
proof  of  that  queenly  rearing.  She  was  not  of  a 
world  where  women  suspected  or  bargained.  They 
lived  their  gracious  lives  within  triple  walls,  un- 
aware of  the  sentinels  and  outposts  for  ever  watch- 
ing over  them.  And  what  were  the  sensations  of 
the  lucky  thief,  who  had  closed  his  fingers  on  the 
prize,  and  run?  They  were  not  altogether  as  joy- 
ful as  one  might  have  thought.  The  thief  was 
very  much  bemused.  That  trusting  head,  snuggled 
against  his  breast,  was  causing  a  curious  commo- 
tion in  the  heart  beneath. 

But  he  overcame  the  unmanly  weakness.     Hell, 


INFATUATION  211 

he  would  take  what  the  gods  had  sent  him.  He 
hadn't  raised  a  hand  to  get  her;  she  had  thrown 
herself  at  him;  oh,  she  knew  what  she  was  doing, 
well  enough,  though  she  probably  expected  him  to 
marry  her.  Perhaps  he  would,  later  on.  He 
wasn't  prepared  right  there  to  say  he  wouldn't. 
But  there  was  plenty  of  time  for  that.  He  hoped 
she  wouldn't  turn  out  to  be  one  of  the  crying, 
troublesome  kind.  Add  a  Laidlaw  Wright  father- 
in-law  to  that,  and  one  might  as  well  shoot  oneself 
—  what  with  writs,  attachments,  box-office  seizures, 
injunctions,  citations  "  to  show  cause,"  detectives 
going  through  your  pockets,  black  eyes,  fines,  con- 
tempt-proceedings—  all  raining  on  a  fellow  in 
buckets !  He  smiled  grimly  at  the  recollection.  No 
more  of  that  for  him. —  Well,  if  she  didn't  like 
the  other  way,  she  would  just  have  to  make  the 
best  of  it.  Her  innocence  here  again  would  be  a 
great  help.  The  poor  little  lamb  believed  every 
word  he  said.  Besides,  with  women,  kisses  could 
always  atone  for  everything. 

The  train  rumbled  on  and  on.  Adair  succumbed 
to  a  fitful  and  uneasy  slumber,  through  which  there 
ran  a  thread  of  tormenting  dreams.  He  had  lost 
her ;  they  had  become  separated,  and  over  the  heads 


212  INFATUATION 

of  a  crowd  he  saw  her  disappearing  in  a  vortex 
of  hurrying  people;  he  struggled  unavailingly  to 
follow,  swearing,  hitting  out,  shouldering  and  el- 
bowing like  a  madman ;  the  cruel  reality  of  it  awak- 
ened him  to  find  her  sleeping  in  his  arms.  He 
awakened  her,  too, —  roughly, —  to  share  his  relief, 
his  joy.  He  made  her  hold  him  round  the  neck; 
made  her  kiss  him,  all  sleepy  as  she  was;  crushed 
and  cuddled  her  in  a  transport  of  sudden  passion. 
Then  he  nodded  off  again,  his  lips  resting  on  her 
silken  hair,  blissfully  content,  and  no  longer  afraid 
to  close  his  heavy  lids. 

They  were  bundled  off  at  Ferrisburg  at  three  in 
the  morning,  all  of  them  so  sodden  with  sleep  that 
they  could  scarcely  keep  their  eyes  open.  A  dilapi- 
dated bus,  and  a  freckled  boy  received  them,  the 
former  representing  the  Clarendon  Hotel,  the  latter, 
Miss  MacGlidden's  theatrical  boarding-house.  The 
company  divided  accordingly,  with  some  grumpy 
facetiousness,  the  lesser  members  trailing  away  on 
foot  after  the  boy,  the  principals  climbing  into  the 
bus, —  the  trunks  of  both  stacked  high  on  the  plat- 
form to  await  the  morning. 

The  hotel,  in  spite  of  its  fine  name,  was  a  bare, 
dismal,  ramshackle  place;  and  the  lowered  lights, 


INFATUATION  213 

and  uncarpeted  floors  gave  it  a  peculiarly  forbid- 
ding air  as  the  doors  were  unlocked  to  admit  them. 
Phyllis,  clinging  to  her  lover's  arm,  and  overcome 
with  weariness,  took  little  heed  of  the  arrange- 
ments being  made  for  their  accommodation.  She 
had  no  idea  of  the  Cyril  Adair  and  wife  that 
was  being  written  almost  under  her  nose.  Even 
when  she  accompanied  Cyril  up-stairs  at  the  heels  of 
a  yawning  darky,  she  was  equally  unaware  that 
her  room  was  also  to  be  his.  No  sleepy  child  at  her 
father's  side  could  have  been  more  trusting. 

The  darky  shuffled  off,  leaving  them  alone  to- 
gether in  the  big,  cold  bedroom.  Adair  took  her 
in  his  arms,  and  kissed  her,  murmuring  something 
that  she  only  half  heard  and  altogether  failed  to 
understand.  All  that  she  grasped  was  that  he 
would  return  in  a  little  while  —  that  she  was  to  un- 
dress, and  go  to  bed,  while  he  went  down  to  get 
his  dress-suit  case.  He  opened  her  own  little  bag, 
and  laughed  as  he  arranged  the  contents  on  the 
chiffonier,  she  with  blushes,  struggling  to  restrain 
him.  Then  he  was  gone,  and  when  she  went  to 
lock  the  door,  she  found  that  the  key  was  gone, 
also. 

She  took  off  her  hat,  her  cloak,  her  bodice,  and 


214  INFATUATION 

with  no  light  save  a  pair  of  wretched  candles  be- 
gan to  brush  her  unloosened  hair.  A  terrible  mis- 
giving was  stealing  over  her  which  she  tried  to 
allay  by  prolonging  this  familiar  task.  The  miss- 
ing key,  the  talk  of  coming  back  —  what  was  she 
to  think?  A  deadly  fear  struck  at  her  heart.  It 
was  not  all  for  her  honor.  There  was  more  at 
stake  than  even  that  —  the  greater  disaster  of 
Adair's  unworthiness.  Could  this  be  the  love  for 
which  she  had  abandoned  everything?  Was  it  all 
a  lie,  a  fraud,  a  trick?  She  suddenly  seemed  to 
lose  the  strength  to  stand,  sinking  into  the  nearest 
chair,  huddled  and  trembling. 

No,  no,  he  could  not  be  so  inconceivably  base. 
She  was  wrong.  His  love  was  as  real  as  hers.  He 
was  incapable  of  such  coldblooded  premeditation. 
Everything  she  had  was  his.  It  was  not  that.  The 
thought  of  giving  herself  to  him  had  filled  her  with 
an  unreasoning  joy.  But  to  be  cheated,  to  barter 
her  life,  her  soul  in  exchange  for  his  pretense  - 
oh,  she  would  have  rather  died!  She  would  have 
starved  for  him,  would  have  sold  the  clothes  off 
her  back  for  him,  would  have  borne  unflinchingly 
odium,  contempt,  disgrace,  asking  only  that  he  love 
her  well.  But  without  that  — !  It  was  for  him  to 


INFATUATION  215 

choose;  she  had  no  resistance  left;  but  if  it  were, 
indeed,  all  a  lie  she  would  kill  herself  the  next  day. 
One  could  outlive  many  things,  but  not  that. 
There  are  some  cheats  that  leave  one  with  no  re- 
dress save  death. 

She  heard  his  step  in  the  corridor ;  heard  the  door 
softly  open;  looked  up  with  dilating  eyes  to  learn 
her  fate.  The  words  Adair  meant  to  say  never 
were  said.  He  stopped,  staring  down  at  her  with 
a  gaze  as  questioning  as  her  own.  It  was  one  of 
those  instants  that  decide  eternities.  All  that  she 
had  thought,  all  that  she  had  dreaded  were  articulate 
in  the  piteous  face  she  raised  to  his.  It  was  a  look, 
which,  mysteriously,  for  that  perceptive  instant  was 
open  for  him  to  read. 

"  They  have  got  me  a  room  on  the  other  side  of 
the  house,"  he  said,  "  but  I  had  to  come  back  first 
to  say  good  night."  He  ran  over  to  her,  kissed  her 
lightly  on  her  bared  shoulder,  pressed  a  great  hand- 
ful of  her  hair  across  his  lips,  and  hurried  away 
before  temptation  could  overmaster  him. 

There  was  no  one  to  be  found  anywhere,  but  he 
remembered  the  stove  still  burning  in  the  bar-room, 
and  the  empty  chairs  gathered  socially  about  it. 
Thither  he  made  his  way  through  the  silent  office 


2i6  INFATUATION 

and  corridors,  and  drawing  his  cheap  fur  coat  close 
about  him,  settled  himself  to  pass  what  little  re- 
mained of  the  night.  There  was  sawdust  on  the 
floor,  spittoons,  scraps  of  sausage-rind ;  the  air  stank 
stalely  of  beer  and  spirits;  the  single  gas-jet,  turned 
very  low,  flickered  over  the  nude  women  that  dec- 
orated the  mean,  fly-blown  walls,  and  flickered,  too, 
over  a  man,  half-slumbering  in  a  chair,  who,  but 
glimmeringly  to  himself,  had  taken  the  turning  road 
of  his  life. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  sensation  of  most  runaway  couples, 
after  filling  up  a  blank  form,  and  having 
a  marriage  service  gabbled  over  them  by 
a  shabby  stranger  in  a  frock-coat,  is  one  of  unmixed 
astonishment  at  the  facility  of  the  whole  proceeding. 
A  dog-license  is  no  harder  to  obtain,  and  the  formal- 
ities attending  vaccination  are  even  greater. 

Phyllis  emerged  from  the  Reverend  Josiah  Lyell's 
with  a  ring  on  her  finger,  and  a  cardboard  certifi- 
cate on  which  the  Almighty,  angels,  and  forked 
lightning  were  depicted  above  her  name  and 
Adair's.  The  first  discussion  of  their  married  life 
was  what  to  do  with  this  monstrosity.  Phyllis  was 
for  tearing  it  up,  but  Adair,  superstitiously  afraid 
of  bad  luck,  insisted  stoutly  on  its  being  retained. 

"  I'll  hide  it  at  the  bottom  of  my  trunk,"  he  said. 

They  returned  to  the  carriage,  which  was  await- 
ing them  as  composedly  as  though  nothing  in  par- 
ticular had  happened  in  the  ten-minute  interval. 

217 


218  INFATUATION 

Adair  wished  to  take  a  drive  before  going  back 
to  the  hotel,  thinking  that  the  air  and  repose  would 
be  soothing  for  their  nerves, —  but  to  his  surprise 
Phyllis  demurred. 

"  I've  been  married  your  way,"  she  said,  "  now 
you  must  come  and  be  married  mine." 

"Yours,  Phyllis?" 

"  Yes,  tell  him  to  drive  to  a  Catholic  church." 

He  gave  the  order  good-humoredly.  "  Aren't 
you  satisfied  ? "  he  asked.  "  Do  you  want  more 
angels  and  forked  lightning?" 

"  You  see,  I've  always  been  a  sort  of  Catholic," 
she  explained.  "  Not  a  good  Catholic,  but  a  poor 
little  straggler,  galloping  on  half  a  mile  behind,  like 
a  baby  sheep  that's  got  left.  I've  never  liked 
the  confession  part  of  it,  but  really,  Cyril,  there's 
a  sort  of  whiff  of  Heaven  about  a  Catholic  church 
that  I  need  occasionally.  It's  just  as  though  you 
were  awfully  hungry,  and  went  in  to  smell  a  beau- 
tiful dinner  a  long  way  off!  " 

"  All  right,  Phyllis,  if  we  are  going  to  get  mar- 
ried we  might  as  well  do  it  thoroughly,"  assented 
Adair.  "  If  you  think  that  beautiful  dinner  will 
help  us  any,  let's  go  and  smell  it  by  all  means." 

As  kind  fate  would  have  it,  it  was  rather  an 


INFATUATION  219 

attractive  church,  and  better  still  it  was  altogether 
deserted.  The  autumn  sunshine  was  streaming 
through  stained-glass  windows;  a  faint  perfume  of 
incense  lingered  in  the  air;  the  peace  and  solitude 
gave  an  added  dignity  to  the  altar,  with  its  suffer- 
ing pale  Christ,  its  tall  candles,  its  effulgent  brasses 
gleaming  in  the  rosy  light.  Phyllis  made  Adair 
kneel  at  her  side,  and  holding  his  hand  tightly  in 
hers,  prayed  silently  with  downcast  eyes,  and  the 
least  quiver  of  a  smile  at  the  corner  of  her  lips. 

On  their  way  out  they  stopped  at  the  font.  She 
crossed  herself,  touched  her  fingers  to  the  water, 
and  scattered  some  drops  on  Adair's  face. 
"  That's  that  you  will  always  love  me,"  she  said, 
with  captivating  solemnity,  "  that's  that  you  will 
always  be  true  to  me ;  and  that's  that  —  I  may 
die  first!" 

Adair  dabbled  his  own  hand  in  the  holy  water, 
as  though  the  act  had  a  religious  significance,  "  Oh, 
God,"  he  said,  looking  up  in  all  seriousness,  "  if 
there  is  a  God  —  take  care  of  this  sweet  wife  of 
mine,  and  guard  her  from  every  harm ;  and  if  there 
isn't,  I  swear  by  this  I  am  going  to  do  it  myself 
just  as  well  as  I  know  how !  " 

They  kissed  each  other,  and  were  about  to  go, 


220  INFATUATION 

when  Phyllis  noticed  the  poor-box.  She  slipped 
off  her  best  ring,  a  little  diamond  such  as  girls  are 
permitted  to  wear,  and  unhesitatingly  dropped  it  in. 
Adair,  caught  by  the  picturesqueness  of  the  offer- 
ing, would  have  sacrificed  his  horseshoe  pin  had 
he  not  been  prevented. 

"  No,  that's  too  pretty,"  she  cried  jealously. 
"  Haven't  you  something  you  don't  like  that  God 
would?  " 

A  little  rummaging  discovered  a  gold  pencil-case 
which  seemed  to  fulfill  this  demand  —  at  least  on 
Adair's  side  —  and  it  forthwith  followed  the  ring. 
Then  they  sought  the  open  air. 

"  Now,  at  last  I  feel  really  married,"  said  Phyllis 
gaily,  as  they  climbed  back  into  the  carriage. 
"  What  a  strange,  dizzy,  safe  sort  of  feeling  it 
gives  one.  And  just  think  I  could  hug  you  right 
now  before  the  driver,  and  that  old  lady  with  the 
basket,  and  that  little  boy  blowing  his  baby  brother's 
nose  —  and  nobody  could  say  Boo !  " 

She  alarmed  Adair  by  pretending  to  carry  the 
hugging  into  effect  until  he  tried  to  push  her  away, 
and  told  her  to  behave.  She  replied  with  a  de- 
lighted, bubbling  outcry  over  her  new  freedom: 
"  Oh,  but  I'm  married  no\v,  and  can  do  just  what 


INFATUATION  221 

I  like,  and  can  have  breakfast  in  bed  with  you 
every  morning,  and  put  my  shoes  out  with  yours 
to  be  blacked,  and  I'm  Mrs.  Adair,  and  have  a 
wedding-ring,  and  a  certificate  with  forked  light- 
ning on  it ! "  She  exultantly  popped  up  her  feet 
on  the  seat  in  front,  showing  a  shocking  amount 
of  black  silk  stocking  with  a  bravado  that  made 
him  grab  at  her  skirt  to  pull  it  down;  and  in 
the  ensuing  romp  there  was  more  silk  stocking  still, 
and  so  much  happy  laughter  on  her  part,  and  scan- 
dalized protestation  on  his  that  the  driver  turned 
round,  and  they  were  all  but  disgraced. 

The  narrowness  of  the  escape  sobered  her,  and 
for  the  rest  of  the  drive  she  was  demureness  itself. 
What  a  joy  it  was  to  recline  with  half-shut  eyes, 
and  let  the  air  fan  away  all  the  troubled  memories 
of  the  night  before !  Mind  and  body  craved  repose, 
and  mind  and  body  found  it  in  the  cradle-like  move- 
ment of  the  carriage.  Adair  was  very  tired,  too, 
and  willing  enough  to  share  his  pretty  companion's 
mood.  Deliciously  conscious  of  each  other,  though 
more  asleep  than  awake,  they  abandoned  them- 
selves to  the  fresh  bright  morning,  and  breathed 
in  deep  drafts  of  contentment. 

On  their  return  to  the  hotel,  the  carriage  stopped 


222  INFATUATION 

and  Tommy  Merguelis  jumped  up  on  the  step.  His 
perennial  grin,  and  withered,  foolish  face  was  not 
unclouded  by  a  certain  anxiety.  He  dropped  a 
bunch  of  roses  into  Phyllis'  lap,  with  an  awkward 
compliment  which  got  as  far  as  she  was  a  rose  her- 
self, and  then  ended  midway  with  a  terrified  giggle. 

"  I'm  awful  sorry,"  he  said,  addressing  Adair, 
"  but  you're  wanted  at  the  theater,  Mr.  Adair,  and 
I've  been  chasing  around  after  you  for  the  last  half- 
hour.  They  want  you  to  rehearse  right  off  with 
Miss  Clarke,  and  coach  her  a  bit  in  the  business." 

"  Why,  what's  the  matter  with  De  Vere?  "  asked 
Adair,  surprised. 

A  slight  glaze  seemed  to  spread  itself  over  the 
grin. 

"  She  won't  be  in  the  bill  for  a  day  or  two," 
said  Tommy.  "  She's  been  suddenly  taken  awful 
bad."  He  paused,  seeking  a  decorous  name  for  the 
attack  in  question,  and  finally  veiled  it  in  the  obscu- 
rity of  a  foreign  language :  "  A  crisis  de  nerves," 
he  added. 

"  Oh,  tantrums  ?  "  said  Adair  in  a  plainer  tongue. 
"  What  a  confounded  nuisance !  " 

"  She  kept  yelling  and  yelling  until  we  got  the 
doctor,"  went  on  Tommy;  "  and  then  on  top  of  that 


INFATUATION  223 

Miss  Clarke  had  to  get  into  a  hair-pulling  match 
with  Miss  Larkins  —  and  so  I  think  you  had  better 
hurry,  Mr.  Adair,  if  there's  to  be  anything  doing 
to-night." 

"  Great  Lord,  I  think  so,  too !  "  cried  the  latter,  to 
whom,  like  all  stars,  the  evening  performance  was 
next  to  a  religion.  "  You  go  on  to  the  hotel,"  he 
went  on,  turning  to  Phyllis,  "  and  make  yourself 
as  comfortable  as  you  can."  The  vexation  in  his 
voice  was  even  a  better  apology  than  the  one  in 
words.  "  I'm  damned  sorry,"  he  said.  "  It's  the 
most  infernal  shame.  Forgive  me,  Phyllis,  please 
do,  and  try  not  to  mind." 

Thus  it  was  that  she  drove  to  the  hotel  alone, 
while  Adair  and  Tommy  strode  off  to  quiet  the 
tempest  in  the  theater,  and  start  a  tedious  and  pro- 
longed rehearsal  with  Miss  de  Vere's  understudy. 

Phyllis  went  to  her  room,  and  found  one  allevia- 
tion of  its  loneliness  in  examining  that  mysterious 
object,  her  wedding-ring.  It  was  so  strange,  so 
unfamiliar,  so  charged  with  significance  and  finality. 
Just  a  trifling  hoop  of  gold,  and  yet  with  what 
myriad  meanings.  Probably  in  days  gone  by,  when 
of  brass  or  iron  it  was  riveted  on  the  neck,  little 
brides  mirrored  themselves  in  pools  with  a  similar 


224  INFATUATION 

awe  at  their  altered  state,  and  a  similar  questioning 
of  the  unknown  future. 

For  better  or  worse,  for  good  or  evil,  her  life 
was  linked  to  Adair's  beyond  all  recalling,  and  the 
emblem  of  their  compact  glittered  on  the  hand  she 
gazed  at  so  long  and  earnestly. 

But  you  can  not  hypnotize  yourself  for  ever  with 
a  wedding-ring  —  even  one  not  two  hours  old. 
There  was  another  matter  that  called  more  insist- 
ently for  her  attention.  Cyril  had  promised  her 
two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  for  her  clothes,  and  it 
behooved  her  to  get  pen  and  ink,  and  begin  making 
her  calculations.  This  she  did  with  much  erasing, 
much  crinkling  of  girlish  brows  —  with  a  profound, 
wise-baby  expression  as  though  all  the  world  were 
at  stake.  There  was  a  delicious  immodesty  in 
spending  Adair's  money  for  such  laced  and  ribboned 
femininities  —  nightgowns,  stockings,  chemises,  and 
what  she  wrote  down  ambiguously  as  "  those 
things,"  and  colored  as  she  wrote  it.  How  thrilling 
it  was,  and  how  exquisitely  shocking!  Oh,  dear, 
what  nice  ones  they  would  have  to  be, —  twenty-five 
dollars  gone  for  six  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye, 
for  surely  economy  here  would  be  a  crime,  men 
being  notoriously  fond  of  — 


INFATUATION  225 

"Mrs.  Adair?" 

Her  new  name  was  so  unfamiliar  that  she  hesi- 
tated before  answering :  "  Come  in." 

"  A  gentleman  to  see  you,  Mrs.  Adair." 

The  door  opened,  and  there  on  the  threshold 
stood  her  father!  His  face  was  white,  his  eyes 
morose  and  sunken,  his  whole  air  so  formidable  that 
in  the  first  shock  of  recognition  Phyllis  could  do 
no  more  than  stare  at  him  in  terror. 

"  May  I  enter  ?  "  he  asked,  in  that  deeper  in- 
tonation of  his  which  he  never  used  except  under 
some  special  stress.  As  he  spoke  he  looked  about 
sharply,  and  with  a  bristling  hostility  as  though 
expecting  to  discover  a  second  occupant  of  the 
room. 

"  Mr.  Adair  isn't  here,"  she  said,  answering  the 
silent  question.  "  I  am  all  alone,  Papa." 

She  would  have  kissed  him,  but  he  brushed  past 
her  to  a  chair,  and  seated  himself  heavily,  laying  his 
silk  hat  and  his  gloves  on  the  floor  beside  him. 
Thus  stalwartly  in  possession  of  the  chamber,  he 
appeared  more  formidable  than  ever,  and  the  de- 
liberate gaze  he  bent  on  Phyllis  was  masterful  and 
menacing. 

"  So  you've  gone  and  thrown  away  your  life," 


226  INFATUATION 

he  said  at  last.  "  Forgive  me,  my  dear,  if  I  am 
not  able  to  congratulate  you  upon  it." 

"  I  married  Mr.  Adair  this  morning,  if  that's 
what  you  mean."  She  hardly  knew  how  to  say 
more  without  adding  to  her  offense.  Her  father 
was  bound  to  put  her  in  the  wrong  whatever  reply 
she  made.  A  terrible  hopelessness  weighed  her 
down,  and  crushed  the  unspoken  appeal  on  her  lips. 

"  Thrown  away  like  that,"  he  repeated,  with  a 
gesture.  "  You,  who  had  everything ;  you,  with 
beauty,  position,  money,  brains  —  my  God,  the 
folly  of  it  —  the  cruel,  wicked,  heartless  folly  of 
it!" 

"Don't,  Papa!"  she  pleaded.  "It's  done,  and 
so  what's  the  good  of  wounding  me  now?  " 

"  Done !  "  he  cried  out  bitterly.  "  That  depends 
on  what  you  mean  by  the  word.  I  will  call  it  done 
in  six  months  when  you  will  leave  him  for  good, 
and  he  will  name  his  price  for  a  divorce.  That's 
the  way  adventurers  marry  money  nowadays.  They 
enjoy  the  girl  till  they  are  tired  of  her,  and  then 
sell!" 

Phyllis  struggled  to  keep  her  composure  under 
the  affront.  "  You  are  very  unjust,"  she  returned 
in  a  low  voice  that  trembled  in  spite  of  herself. 


INFATUATION  227 

"  You  are  determined  to  think  the  worst  of  him, 
and  make  it  impossible  for  us  ever  to  be  friends. 
But  you  are  wrong,  Papa.  He's  not  an  adven- 
turer, nor  anything  like  it.  Surely  I  ought  to  know 
better  than  you,  and  if  I  have  been  willing  to  love 
him,  and  marry  him — " 

"  Oh,  I'm  not  going  to  argue  with  you  about 
him,"  interrupted  Mr.  Ladd  harshly.  "  You  be- 
lieve in  him  now,  of  course.  One  can't  reason  with 
lunatics,  and  I  shan't  try.  I'll  give  you  six  months 
—  perhaps  even  less  —  and  then  I  want  you  to 
remember  what  I  am  saying  to  you  now." 

"  That  you  were  right?  " —  Her  voice  was  scorn- 
ful.— "  Oh,  Papa,  this  is  unworthy  of  you." 

"  Phyllis,"  he  retorted,  "  that's  the  last  thing  on 
earth  I  would  ever  say  to  you.  If  you  should  come 
back  to  me  disillusioned,  broken,  utterly  weary  of 
the  muddle  you  have  made  of  it  all,  you  will  find 
everything  unchanged  between  us  and  the  whole 
matter  as  ignored  as  though  it  had  never  been. 
That's  what  you  are  to  remember  —  that  my  heart 
and  my  purse  will  never  be  closed  against  you." 

"  Though  both  are  dependent  on  my  giving  up 
my  husband  ?  " 

"  He  will  give  you  up,  my  dear,  fast  enough." 


228  INFATUATION 

"  How  dare  you  say  that,  Papa  —  how  dare 
you!  "  A  mist  of  anger  was  in  her  eyes,  and  two 
spots  of  crimson  glowed  dangerously  on  her  cheeks. 
Never  in  her  life  had  she  been  more  roused;  up  to 
that  moment  she  had  still  hoped  to  save  the  day 
and  win  her  father  over,  but  now  she  perceived  the 
irrevocable  nature  of  what  was  being  said.  Yet 
outwardly,  at  least,  she  restrained  herself,  and  hid 
within  her  quivering  breast  a  tumult  that  seemed 
to  rend  her  to  pieces. 

"  If  I  seem  to  be  misjudging  Mr.  Adair  it  is  only 
because  I  know  more  about  him  that  you  do,"  con- 
tinued Mr.  Ladd  in  a  tone  not  untinged  with  a  grim 
satisfaction.  Even  as  he  spoke  he  drew  out  a  thick 
packet,  and  unfolded  it  on  his  knee.  It  was  a  mass 
of  typewriting,  with  here  and  there  a  notorial  seal 
on  paper  of  a  different  color,  and  an  occasional 
newspaper  cutting  neatly  pasted  in  the  center  of  a 
little  sea  of  comment.  "  Here  we  have  him  in 
black  and  white,"  he  went  on,  "  and  frankly,  Phyllis, 
he  offers  you  a  very  poor  promise  of  a  happy  mar- 
ried life." 

"  And  you  expect  me  on  my  wedding  morning  to 
sit  down  and  read  these  things  —  these  abominable 
slanders  your  detectives  have  scraped  together?" 


INFATUATION  229 

"  Oh,  no.  But  I  demand  to  have  Mr.  Adair  sit 
down  and  answer  them." 

"  Would  you  believe  him  if  he  did  ?  " 

"  Facts  are  facts.     He  can't  deny  them." 

"  And  you  called  me  unreasonable  ?     Oh,  Papa !  " 

Mr.  Ladd  ignored  the  taunt. 

"  When  he  appreciates  that  his  whole  disreputa- 
ble past  is  known  to  me,"  he  went  on,  with  the 
same  inflexible  composure,  "  he  may  condescend  to 
consider  —  an  arrangement." 

"  An  arrangement  ?  —  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  I  have  brought  a  blank  check  with  me,"  he 
explained.  "  He  can  name  anything  —  and  get  it. 
I'd  rather  pay  more  now  than  less  later." 

His  brutality  overwhelmed  her.  It  took  her  a 
few  seconds  to  understand  the  incredible  baseness 
he  imputed  to  Adair.  In  the  light  of  this  her 
father's  previous  insults  paled  to  insignificance. 
She  was  too  stunned  to  make  any  reply,  and  for 
a  while  could  do  nothing  but  look  at  him  in  speech- 
less wonder.  Then  she  rose,  and  rang  the  bell. 

"  The  marriage  could  be  annulled,"  said  Mr. 
Ladd,  oblivious  of  everything  except  his  one  preoc- 
cupation. "  The  next  thing  is  to  keep  the  newspa- 
pers quiet,  and  that  I  can  do.  We.'ll  go  abroad  — " 


230  INFATUATION 

The  darky  came  running  up  with  a  pitcher  of 
ice  water.  No  one  ever  rang  for  anything  else  in 
the  Clarendon  Hotel.  He  entered,  jingling  the  ice. 

"  Show  this  gentleman  out,"  said  Phyllis,  "  and 
I  want  you  to  remember  I  shall  not  be  home  to 
him  again." 

"Phyllis!" 

The  entreaty  in  his  voice  moved  her  not  a  bit, 
nor  the  outstretched  hand,  veined,  wrinkled  and 
shaking. 

"  It's  conceivable  I  may  forgive  you  for  this, 
Papa,"  she  exclaimed,  "  though  God  knows  it  will 
be  hard.  But  if  you  offer  that  check  to  Cyril  I 
shall  hate  you  till  the  day  I  die !  " 

"  Have  it  your  own  way  then,"  he  returned  dully, 
and  with  a  curious  break  in  his  voice.  "  Take  your 
own  wilful  road,  and  come  back  to  me  when  your 
heart's  broken.  I'll  be  waiting  for  you,  Phyllis, 
and  ready  to  forget  and  forgive." 

She  disdained  to  make  any  reply.  The  darky 
officiously  gathered  up  the  silk  hat  and  gloves  from 
the  floor,  and  presented  them  to  Mr.  Ladd.  The 
latter,  with  a  last  look  at  his  daughter's  unrelenting 
face,  turned  in  silence,  and  passed  out. 

"  The  stairs  are  to  the  left,  sah,"  said  the  darky. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

WHETHER  disillusion  was  finally  destined 
to  arrive  or  not,  there  was  certainly  not 
a  hint  of  it  during  those  succeeding 
weeks.  There  was  no  happier  little  bride  in  Amer- 
ica than  Phyllis  Adair,  and  intimate  acquaintance 
with  that  extraordinary  creature,  man,  only  re- 
doubled her  delight  in  him.  The  bigness,  direct- 
ness, simplicity,  intolerance,  and  dog-like  devotion 
of  her  husband  were  an  unfailing  joy  to  her.  No 
little  girl  who  had  been  given  a  coveted  St.  Bernard 
could  have  taken  more  anxious,  eager,  excited  care 
of  him.  She  would  feed  Adair  with  the  daintiest 
morsels  from  her  own  plate ;  she  would  exert  every 
faculty  she  possessed  to  amuse  and  distract  him 
when  he  fell  into  one  of  his  despondent  moods; 
she  would  mock  him  with  such  pretty  archness  when 
he  grew  irritable  over  trifles.  "  Damn  it  all, 
where  did  that  fool  Williams  put  my  patent  leather 
shoes  ?  " —  "  Damn  it  all,  you  will  find  them  in 

231 


232  INFATUATION 

the  bottom  of  the  wardrobe  neatly  ranged  with  the 
others,"  she  would  answer.  No  matter  how  ill 
his  humor  she  always  found  the  means  to  make  him 
smile;  her  quick  wit,  or  her  slim,  audacious  body 
each  exultantly  willing  to  tease  and  bewitch  him. 

Of  all  human  gifts  surely  that  of  loving  has 
received  the  least  general  recognition.  A  genius 
for  music,  a  genius  for  mathematics  or  natural  his- 
tory, or  sculpture,  or  mechanics,  is  at  once  admitted 
and  acclaimed.  But  what  of  a  genius  for  loving, 
which  of  all  is  infinitely  the  rarest?  The  trouble 
is  that  every  one  is  conceited  enough  to  think  that 
he  (or  she)  is  a  wonder  at  it.  But  frankly,  do 
we  really  indeed  see  so  many  love-geniuses  about 
us?  Are  we  not  rather  struck  instead  by  an  almost 
universal  love-poverty?  If  the  husband  stays 
drearily  at  home  every  night  of  his  life,  and  if  the 
wife  is  entirely  absorbed  in  the  baby,  are  we  not 
asked  enthusiastically  to  applaud  a  happy  home? 
This  is  the  national  ideal,  and  tens  of  thousands 
are  yawning  heroically  through  it.  But  where's 
love  in  any  but  half-pint  sizes?  Everybody  insists 
it  is  there  in  barrelfuls,  much  as  they  insisted  in 
the  fairy  tale  in  the  case  of  the  man  with  the  in- 
visible clothes. —  We  are  not  defending  hubby  when 


INFATUATION  233 

he  gets  tangled  up  with  the  blonde  lady,  but  emo- 
tionally speaking  (only  emotionally,  be  it  under- 
stood), it  may  be  an  upward  step.  If  you  have 
a  ten  per  cent,  capacity  to  love,  it  is  hard  to  be 
fobbed  off  with  a  four  per  cent,  partner. 

Phyllis  was  one  of  the  chosen  few  in  whom  the 
capacity  to  love  was  inordinate.  Her  one  thought 
was  to  make  herself  indispensable  to  the  man  to 
whom  she  had  given  herself.  Adair  was  the  last 
thing  in  her  head  at  night,  the  first  at  dawn.  Hardly 
was  there  an  act  of  hers  in  which  his  personality 
was  not  a  contributing  factor.  Her  insatiable  am- 
bition was  to  please  and  delight  him,  and  her  brain 
was  ever  busy  to  find  fresh  ways,  and  improve  on 
the  old.  Her  finesse,  her  humor,  her  ardent  and 
tender  imagination  —  all  were  enlisted  to  a  single 
end.  Passion  she  had  in  plenty,  for  she  was  of  a 
voluptuous  nature,  and  the  blood  coursed  hotly  in 
her  veins  —  but  she  had  more  than  that  to  give  him, 
and  was  possessed  of  a  thousand  captivating  arts  to 
ensnare  this  love  that  was  said  to  be  so  elusive,  and 
bind  it  tight  with  a  myriad  silken  threads. 

It  will  be  asked  was  Adair  worthy  of  so  supreme 
a  devotion?  Is  it  not  enough  to  answer  that  he 
was  not  altogether  unworthy?  There  was  a  lot  of 


234  INFATUATION 

human  day  in  the  creature,  and  while  Phyllis  was 
exerting  all  her  blithe  young  ardor  to  keep  the  altar- 
fires  aflame,  he  was  content  to  look  on  lazily,  and 
man-like,  take  many  things  for  granted.  Had  she 
been  no  better,  their  love  would  have  run  the  ordi- 
nary course,  and  perished  fast  enough  on  the  rocks 
of  habit  and  satiety.  Adair's  spiritual  side  was  all 
but  dormant.  He  was  encased  in  materialism  as 
stoutly  as  some  of  us  in  fat;  whatever  gropings  he 
had  toward  higher  things  were  all  in  the  direction 
of  the  stage.  Feelings  he  could  not  initiate  him- 
self he  took  here  ready  made,  and  showed  almost 
a  genius  in  their  comprehension.  He  presented  a 
paradox  of  one  who  could  admirably  "  get  into  " 
any  written  character,  and  yet  who  was  wholly 
unable  to  "  get  into  "  his  own. 

Phyllis  knew  much  more  what  laid  beneath  than 
he.  To  her  the  yearning,  troubled,  inarticulate 
soul  of  the  man  appealed  as  pathetically  as  the 
sight  of  some  great,  ashamed,  bearded  fellow  who 
had  never  been  taught  to  read.  In  the  finer  sense 
Adair  had  never  been  taught  anything.  His  in- 
stincts alone  had  saved  him  from  being  a  clod.  In 
his  fight  up  from  the  bottom  he  had  arrived  a  good 
deal  splashed  with  mud;  and  Phyllis,  figuratively 


INFATUATION  235 

speaking,  rolled  back  her  sleeves,  and  set  herself  to 
tubbing  him. 

He  was  extraordinarily  submissive  in  this  respect, 
extraordinarily  grateful  and  responsive.  He  made 
no  pretense  of  hiding  his  ignorance,  but  questioned 
her  like  a  child,  and  often  as  artlessly.  At  thirty- 
four  he  was  having  the  universe  reconstructed  for 
him,  and  the  process  filled  him  with  astonishment. 
Phyllis  read  aloud  to  him  from  such  unheard-of 
authors  as  Thackeray,  Carlyle,  Hardy,  Stevenson, 
and  Meredith  until  these  strange  names  became 
quite  familiar.  She  could  read  French,  too,  trans- 
lating as  she  went,  while  he  sat  back,  profoundly 
respectful  and  impressed,  his  humility  tinged  with 
the  zest  of  ownership.  Yes,  her  youth,  her  beauty, 
her  intelligence,  her  love,  all  were  his;  and  as  he 
gazed  at  her  through  the  haze  of  his  cigar,  the 
words  often  fell  heedlessly  on  his  ear  as  he  felt  the 
mantling  of  a  divine  contentment. 

Yet  he  could  be  very  masterful  on  some  matters. 
Phyllis  was  not  allowed  to  receive  the  advances  of 
the  company,  or  to  associate  with  any  of  its  mem- 
bers, a  prohibition  not  a  little  difficult  to  obey  in  the 
course  of  their  constant  traveling  together.  But  if 
Phyllis  shrank  from  being  rude,  Adair  suffered  from 


236  INFATUATION 

no  similar  delicacy,  and  was  brutally  direct  in  mak- 
ing his  wishes  plain  to  his  stage  companions.  It 
was  not  only  that  he  feared  Lydia  de  Vere,  whose 
yellowish  eyes  were  full  of  enmity,  and  whose 
powers  for  mischief  he  well  knew;  but  in  contrast 
to  his  dainty  wife  these  theater-people  somehow  be- 
gan to  strike  him  as  tarnished  and  common,  and 
he  was  jealously  reluctant  to  expose  her  to  their 
familiarities.  Intercourse  with  Phyllis  was  shar- 
pening his  critical  faculty;  his  view-point  was  in- 
sensibly changing;  there  were  even  times  when  he 
realized  his  own  deficiencies. —  Tommy  Merguelis 
was  the  one  exception  he  made.  The  lanky  young 
man,  when  weighed  in  the  new  scales,  was  found 
to  be  less  wanting  than  the  others.  There  was 
something  sensitive  and  refined  about  Tommy.  Ill- 
health,  pins,  and  years  of  furniture-polish  had  been 
as  cleansing  fires.  He  was  a  humble  person  who 
would  accept  his  humble  inch  and  grin  gratefully, 
and  not  reach  out  for  an  ell.  Yes,  Phyllis  might 
be  friends  with  Tommy. 

With  them  on  their  travels  from  town  to  town 
went  a  punching-bag,  which  Adair.  inflated  and 
set  up  as  soon  as  their  trunks  were  unpacked. 
Every  morning,  stripped  to  the  waist,  Phyllis  had 


INFATUATION  237 

to  double  up  her  little  fists,  and  start  a-pummelling 
for  ten  furious  minutes.  There  could  be  no  beg- 
ging off  from  this  daily  rite ;  it  was  one  of  the  iron 
rules  of  married  life;  pleadings,  caresses,  protests 
all  were  in  vain.  An  icy  bath  had  to  follow,  and 
if  she  hesitated  too  long  on  the  brink,  or  showed 
too  mutinous  a  row  of  toes,  Adair  would  jump  up, 
and  tumble  her  in  as  mercilessly  as  a  boy  with 
a  puppy.  At  night,  too,  he  was  no  less  rigid  in 
regard  to  her  prayers.  His  own  religion  was  very 
nebulous.  He  never  prayed  himself  nor  went  to 
church;  but  apparently  that  was  no  reason  why 
Phyllis  should  be  similarly  backward.  It  gave  him 
a  peculiar  pleasure  to  see  her  kneeling  beside  the 
bed,  her  night  dress  flowing  about  her  slender, 
girlish  body,  and  her  hair  drawn  back,  and  held 
by  a  circlet  of  red  ribbon.  He  knew  no  prettier 
picture,  nor  was  it  without  a  tender  and  uplifting 
value.  For  it  was  his  name  that  moved  on  her 
lips,  and  who  would  not  have  been  proud  to  send 
so  enchanting  a  little  deputy  to  plead  for  one  be- 
fore the  Throne  of  Grace?  Then  it  was  that  he 
seemed  to  love  her  best ;  and  though  all  unaware  of 
it,  he,  too,  was  praying  in  the  deeper,  unspoken 
language  of  the  heart. 


238  INFATUATION 

"  You've  forgotten  your  prayers !  " 

"  Oh,  it  was  so  cold  —  I  thought  I  wouldn't  to- 
night" 

"Jump  up!" 

"  It's  so  cosy  here  with  you  —  and  you  ought  to 
have  said  it  sooner  —  and  anyhow,  I  won't." 

"Jump  up!" 

"Oh,  Cyril,  that  hurts!" 

"  Of  course,  it  hurts." 

"  It's  wicked  to  pinch  as  hard  as  that." 

"  It's  wickeder  not  to  say  your  prayers." 

"  Oh,  Cyril,  don't,  don't! " 

"  Jump  up,  then." 

"  I'm  not  in  the  right  frame  of  mind  now  —  you 
have  pinched  it  all  away. —  All  right,  all  right, 
don't  —  I'll  do  it !  Though  I  don't  think  a  pinch- 
prayer  would  be  as  good  as  a  real  one.  Do  you  ?  " 

"  This  is  the  prayer-rush  time  —  God  won't  no- 
tice it." 

"  Not  even  if  I  am  black  and  blue?  Why,  the 
angels  will  be  shocked." 

"  They  are  that  already  with  the  fuss  you  have 
made.  Roll  out,  you  bad  little  chap, —  out  with 
you!" 


INFATUATION  239 

Sometimes  Adair  was  sharp  with  her  —  impatient 
and  fretful.  He  made  very  little  effort  to  control 
his  moods,  which,  as  with  most  artists,  were  as 
changeable  and  capricious  as  those  of  a  child.  Nine 
women  out  of  ten  would  have  retorted  in  kind, 
and  the  honeymoon  period  would  have  insensibly 
passed,  and  with  it  much  of  the  charm  and  rapture 
of  their  union.  It  was  due  to  no  help  of  Adair's 
that  they  did  not  descend  to  the  ordinary  plane 
of  married  life,  with  its  deliquescence  of  nearly 
everything  beautiful  and  romantic  —  occasional 
harshness  on  one  side,  tears  and  pin-prickings  on 
the  other,  and  departing  illusions  on  both.  People 
can  still  get  along  very  tolerably  in  this  manner, 
and  remain  fairly  fond  and  faithful,  but  no  one  can 
contend  it  is  the  poet's  ideal.  It  was  certainly  not 
Phyllis',  and  she  was  determined  to  avoid  such  a 
catastrophe. 

In  her  ambitious  little  head  the  honeymoon  was 
to  be  only  the  beginning  of  a  sweeter  intimacy  be- 
yond. She  saw,  lying  latent  in  Adair,  a  capacity 
to  love  as  great  as  her  own  (she  was  presumptuous 
enough  to  think  that  no  one  could  love  any  better), 
and  her  one  consuming  endeavor  was  to  draw  it 


240  INFATUATION 

forth.  Whether  or  not  the  prize  was  worth  the 
winning  never  occurred  to  her.  This  big-,  splen- 
did, untamed  man-animal  was  hers,  with  all  his 
weaknesses  and  defects,  with  all  his  fine  qualities 
and  bad,  and  she  had  accepted  the  responsibility 
of  him  with  naive  self-confidence.  To  love  was 
her  vocation,  and  she  set  herself  to  it  with  de- 
light. 

Her  unfailing  gaiety,  her  pretty  artifices  to 
amuse  and  cajole  him,  her  constant  study  of  means 
to  give  him  pleasure  —  all  were  as  the  drops  that 
wear  away  the  stone.  High-spirited,  quick-tem- 
pered, and  with  a  sensitiveness  that  a  glance  could 
wound,  she  yet  put  such  a  rein  upon  herself  that 
no  provocation  could  draw  from  her  an  unkind 
word.  She  might  grow  suddenly  silent,  her  mouth 
might  quiver,  her  eyes  glisten,  but  no  sharp  retort 
ever  passed  her  lips.  There  are  many  men  with 
whom  this  would  not  have  answered.  To  some, 
indeed,  an  exquisite  gentleness  and  forbearance  al- 
most tempts  their  harshness.  Feeling  themselves 
in  the  wrong  their  vanity  is  insulted,  and  with 
morbid  perversity  they  go  from  bad  to  worse.  But 
Adair  was  not  of  this  sort.  With  all  his  faults 
he  was  a  man  of  generous  instincts,  and  capable  of 


INFATUATION  241 

quick  and  headlong  repentances.  He  could  come 
in  like  a  thunder-cloud,  on  edge  with  nerves,  snap- 
pish, morose,  ready  to  fly  off  the  tangent  at  a  trifle 
—  and  five  minutes  later  would  be  sitting  at  Phyllis' 
feet,  his  face  in  her  lap,  conquered,  contrite,  de- 
claiming hotly  against  himself,  his  ill-temper  all 
striking  inward. 

These  lapses  of  his  helped  his  love  much  more 
than  they  hurt  it,  and  through  them  he  began  to 
acquire  some  self-control,  some  degree  of  consid- 
eration —  some  shame.  In  him  devotion  brought 
out  devotion.  Instead  of  resenting  Phyllis'  strate- 
gems  to  keep  him  good-humored  and  happy,  he 
was  touched  to  the  quick.  It  was  a  new  idea,  this 
of  keeping  love  alight;  of  consecrating  thought 
and  care  to  it  and  guarding  the  precious  flame  from 
extinction.  It  dawned  upon  him  as  something  en- 
tirely novel  and  unheard-of.  Yet  it  was  beautiful; 
he  approved  of  it  heartily.  He  innocently  ascribed 
the  invention  to  Phyllis,  and  as  usual  was  tremen^ 
dously  impressed.  It  made  him  wonder  whether 
she  ever  thought  of  anything  else  but  love.  As  he 
grew  to  know  her  better  he  saw  that  it  inspired  all 
she  did  —  that  every  impulse  and  every  action 
sprang  from  it. 


242  INFATUATION 

Had  he  been  a  king,  and  she  the  transient,  pretty 
butterfly  of  the  moment,  she  could  not  have  striven 
harder  to  fascinate  and  hold  him.  Her  saucy 
tongue,  her  fancifulness,  her  audacity,  her  often- 
declared  determination  to  be  as  much  sweetheart  as 
wife  —  all  were  as  spice  to  a  love  that  might  other- 
wise have  cloyed.  To  adore  a  man  is  not  enough 
—  there  is  nothing  the  poor  darling  silly  animal 
gets  tired  of  so  soon  as  being  adored. —  One  had 
to  keep  him  interested,  captivated,  filling  in  one's 
own  little  person  all  his  complicated  needs  of  pas- 
sion, comradeship,  entertainment,  variety,  and  men- 
tal recreation.  But  how  well  one  was  repaid!  If 
one  gave  a  whole  harem's  worth  of  love,  one  re- 
ceived a  whole  harem's  worth  back,  and  sweetest 
of  all  one  could  watch  the  unfolding  and  ripening 
of  a  really  fine  nature.  She  was  sure  her  infat- 
uation had  guided  her  truly  in  that  respect ;  that  her 
choice  had  fallen  on  a  man  with  heart  and  soul  big 
enough  to  repay  her  devotion.  He  might  be  rough, 
but  she  had  never  a  moment's  doubt  as  to  the  dia- 
mond, nor  as  to  her  ability  to  shape  and  polish  it. 

It  was  a  process,  unfortunately,  that  could  not 
be  hurried.  Against  her  in  the  endeavor  were  the 
ingrained  habits  and  wilfulness  of  twenty  years. 


INFATUATION  243 

From  his  boyhood  up  Adair  had  lived  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  unrestraint,  a  Bohemian  of  Bohemians, 
without  ties,  care-free,  the  whim  of  the  moment  his 
only  guide.  Some  backslidings  on  his  part  were 
inevitable  and  Phyllis,  with  all  her  illusions,  was 
sane  and  cool  enough  to  foresee  them.  It  was  hardly 
a  surprise  to  her,  therefore,  though  frightening 
and  dismaying,  when  late  one  night,  after  await- 
ing him  in  vain,  Tommy  Merguelis  appeared  un- 
expectedly in  his  stead.  Any  stranger  to  the  young 
man  would  have  judged  him  to  be  in  high  spirits; 
his  shrill,  nervous  laugh  was  louder  than  usual; 
and  he  stammered  and  giggled  as  though  bubbling 
over  with  an  unextinguishable  good  nature.  To 
Phyllis'  practised  eyes,  however,  these  were  ominous 
signs,  and  her  breath  came  a  little  quickly,  as  she 
asked  news  of  her  husband. 

"  Oh,  he's  all  right,"  said  Tommy,  standing  with 
one  hand  on  the  door-knob,  and  showing  no  inclina- 
tion to  enter  the  room.  "  Oh,  Mr.  Adair  is  all 
right  —  and  hee,  hee,  don't  you  worry  about  him. 
He's  detained,  that's  all,  and  he  sent  me  to  say  he 
might  be  late,  and,  and — " 

"And  what?" 

"  They've  got  him  into  a  game  down  at  Mr. 


244  INFATUATION 

Feld's  —  the  owner  of  the  theater,  hee,  hee  —  and 
he  couldn't  well  refuse,  or  at  least — " 

"  Oh,  Tommy,  please  —  I  don't  understand." 

"  Just  a  little  game  of  draw." 

"Cards?" 

"Yes  — poker." 

This  did  not  strike  Phyllis  as  anything  very  ter- 
rible. 

"  And  he  sent  you  to  tell  me  he  would  be  late?  " 
she  inquired,  much  reassured. 

Tommy  lied  manfully.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he 
had  invented  the  message  —  and  the  errand  —  to 
shield  Adair,  who  had  forgotten  everything  in  the 
absorption  of  the  game.  "  Yes,"  he  said,  "  he  can't 
manage  to  be  back  to  supper  with  you,  and  is  awful 
sorry  about  it,  and  hopes  you  won't  mind." 
Though  Tommy  could  lie,  he  could  not  act.  His 
anxiety  was  obvious;  he  wriggled  uncomfortably; 
and  his  silly,  convulsive  smile  presaged  some  dis- 
agreeable revelation.  Phyllis,  now  thoroughly 
alarmed,  and  with  characteristic  directness  went 
straight  for  the  truth. 

"Tommy,  has  he  been  drinking?" 

"Oh,  ah,  well,  hee,  hee  —  yes,  he  has." 

"  And  they  are  playing  high  ?  " 


INFATUATION"  245 

"  A  dollar  limit." 

"  And  you  came  here  to  warn  me  ?  Don't  deny  it." 

"  Oh,  ah,  well,  hee,  hee  —  yes,  I  did,  Mrs. 
Adair." — As  Phyllis  paused,  troubled,  uncertain, 
full  of  distress,  Tommy  added :  "  I  don't  know 
as  it  wouldn't  be  a  good  plan  for  you  to  come  along 
with  me  and  get  him." 

"Would  he  come?" 

"  Anybody  would  come  for  you,  Mrs.  Adair." 

"  Surely  he  doesn't  often  gamble,  Tommy.  He 
has  never  spoken  to  me  of  it  ?  " 

"  Oh,  there's  nothing  he  don't  do  when  the  fit 
takes  him.  Hee,  hee,  he's  that  kind,  you  know  — 
temperamental." 

The  word,  and  the  woebegone  indulgence  with 
which  it  was  uttered  made  Phyllis  smile.  Her 
humor  was  always  close  to  the  surface,  even  when 
there  were  tears  between. 

"  You  are  a  dear,  good  fellow,"  she  said,  "  and 
I'll  never  forget  your  kindness  to-night,  though  as 
for  doing  anything,  I  am  going  to  stay  here." 

He  was  amazed  at  the  gentleness  of  her  tone. 

"  I  am  never  going  to  be  his  taskmaster,"  she 
went  on,  as  much  to  herself  as  to  Tommy.  "As 
far  as  I  am  concerned  he  shall  always  be  as  free 


246  INFATUATION 

as  air.  If  I  went  after  him  at  all,  it  would  be  to 
sit  on  his  knee,  and  drink  with  him." 

Tommy's  scandalized  face  again  made  her 
laugh. 

"  Don't  be  afraid,"  she  said  with  tremulous 
gaiety,  "  I  won't  do  it  this  evening,  anyhow.  Now 
run  away,  Tommy,  and  tell  them  down-stairs  we 
shan't  need  any  supper  after  all." 

She  shut  the  door  after  him,  and  stood  with  her 
back  to  it,  forlornly  regarding  the  empty  room. 
She  was  more  than  hurt,  more  than  mortified.  She 
had  to  ask  herself  if  she  had  failed. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

IT  was  dawn  when  Adair  staggered  in,  un- 
dressed and  rolled  in  beside  her.  Her  long 
vigil  had  been  succeeded  by  an  overpowering 
slumber,  and  she  was  not  aware  of  his  return  until 
the  streaming  sunshine  awakened  her  toward  nine 
o'clock.  She  wondered  at  first  why  her  heart  was 
so  heavy,  and  then,  with  reviving  recollection,  sat 
up,  and  gazed  at  her  sleeping  husband.  Even  a 
debauch  could  not  impair  his  fine  complexion,  and 
the  thick,  black  hair  clustered  against  the  ruddy 
skin  softened  Phyllis'  expression  as  she  studied 
his  face  long  and  earnestly.  The  charm  of  that 
vigorous  manhood  was  irresistible,  and  whatever 
lurking  grudge  she  still  had  against  Adair  was  lost 
in  a  fresh  access  of  tenderness.  His  uneasy  breath- 
ing, his  hot  dry  forehead,  his  parched  and  parted 
lips,  all  appealed  as  well  to  the  woman  in  her  — 
the  mother,  the  nurse. 

For  once  the  routine  of  punching-bag  and  bath 
247 


248  INFATUATION 

was  forgone,  and  her  first  task  on  rising  was  to 
set  about  preparing  breakfast.  This,  with  the 
pair,  was  a  trifling  matter,  consisting  of  rolls,  cream 
and  butter  ordered  over  night  and  set  outside  their 
door  on  a  tray  every  morning,  and  the  coffee  Phyllis 
made  herself  over  a  spirit  lamp.  She  was  thus 
busily  engaged  when  she  was  conscious  of  a  move- 
ment on  the  bed,  and  turned  to  see  her  husband  low- 
ering at  her  with  bloodshot  eyes.  Awake,  he 
looked  disheveled,  surly,  ill  and  exasperated.  His 
head  was  splitting,  and  he  was  in  one  of  those  vile 
humors  when  a  man  avenges  his  physical  distress 
on  those  about  him.  He  pushed  Phyllis  away  as 
she  ran  over  to  him,  and  told  her  roughly  to  leave 
him  alone.  The  offer  of  a  cup  of  coffee  outraged 
him.  Groaning  and  swearing,  he  pulled  himself 
into  a  sitting  posture,  and  in  a  voice  as  intentionally 
disagreeable  as  he  could  make  it  demanded  some 
hot  water. 

Holding  the  cup  in  both  hands,  he  began  to  drink 
it  in  angry  little  sips,  finding  a  malign  satisfaction 
in  the  change  that  had  come  over  Phyllis.  Pale, 
silent,  wounded  and  frightened,  she  was  utterly  at 
loss  to  know  what  to  do.  Every  word  was  a 


INFATUATION  249 

stab,  and  she  had  a  stupefying  feeling  that  the  end 
had  come.  Her  only  coherent  thought,  the  only 
manifestation  of  resentment  within  her,  was  to  con- 
tribute nothing  to  bring  about  the  catastrophe.  If 
Adair  were  determined  to  pull  down  their  little 
paradise  about  their  ears,  and  destroy  for  ever  the 
filmy  and  poetic  fabric  of  a  perfect  love,  she,  at 
least,  would  hold  herself  innocent  of  the  sacrilege. 
But,  oh,  the  pang  of  it,  the  heartrending  misery, 
the  disillusion! 

"  Now,  go  ahead,"  he  said  sullenly.  "  I'm  ready 
—  go  ahead !  " 

She  faltered  and  trembled  in  asking  him  what 
he  meant. 

He  burst  out  with  a  scornful  laugh. 

"  I  was  drunk  last  night,"  he  said,  "  you  know 
that  as  well  as  I  do,  and  here  I  am  ready  to  take 
my  medicine  — -•  can't  avoid  it,  I  know  that  —  and 
want  to  get  it  over  with.  You  wouldn't  be  a 
woman  if  you  didn't  pay  me  out." 

The  vulgarity  of  the  conception  stung  her. 

"  I  — I  don't  pay  people  out,"  she  said  simply. 

"  Oh,  no,  you're  the  quiet  kind,"  he  went  on  with 
an  ugly  jeer,  intent  somehow  on  putting  her  in  the 


250  INFATUATION 

wrong.  "  You  don't  say  anything,  but  you  sit 
there  and  freeze  a  fellow  —  and  oh,  my  God,  yes, 
cry !  There  you  go,  cry,  cry,  cry !  " 

She  did  break  down  for  a  moment  under  his 
deliberate  cruelty,  but  quickly  rallying,  came  over, 
and  sat  beside  him  on  the  bed. 

"  Don't,  don't  quarrel  with  me,"  she  said  piti- 
fully, and  then  added  with  a  gleam  of  humor,  "  after 
all,  it  wasn't  I  that  was  drunk,  you  know." 

She  put  out  her  hand,  and  for  a  while  he  per- 
mitted it  to  lie  against  his  aching  forehead.  All 
would  have  been  well  had  he  not  unfortunately 
spilled  his  cup.  At  this  his  latent  fury  broke  out 
anew. 

"  For  God's  sake,  don't  crowd  all  over  me !  "  he 
cried.  "  Sit  over  there,  where  we  can  talk  like  sen- 
sible people.  You  have  made  me  all  wet  with  the 
damned  stuff." 

The  fault  was  his  own,  and  due  to  his  unsteady 
hands,  but  he  was  wilfully  pleased  to  put  her  in  the 
wrong.  He  glowered  at  her  with  savage  reproach 
as  she  moved  a  little  farther  away  in  obedience  to 
his  command.  She  was  disconcertingly  quiet,  and 
it  seemed  to  him  an  added  injustice  to  be  cheated 
of  a  scene.  There  was  nothing  but  her  anguished 


INFATUATION  251 

eyes,  and  her  drooping  and  utterly  dispiriting  atti- 
tude to  tell  him  how  well  he  was  succeeding. 

"  You're  a  little  fool,"  he  announced  inconse- 
quently. 

He  waited  for  her  to  answer,  but  she  made  no 
sign  of  having  heard  him,  sitting  there  stricken, 
numb. 

"  To  have  tied  up  with  such  a  damned  goat," 
he  added,  with  immense  conviction. 

Still  no  answer. 

"  The  best  thing  you  can  do  is  to  pack  up  and 
go,"  he  went  on. 

At  this  she  did  find  her  voice,  ghost  of  a  one 
that  it  was. 

"  Is  that  what  you  really  want  me  to  do,  Cyril  ?  " 

"  It's  what  you  ought  to  do,"  he  returned,  with 
a  sternly  paternal  air. 

"  It's  for  you  to  decide." 

His  mumbling  reply  turned  into  a  groan. 

"  I  lost  nearly  four  hundred  dollars  last  night," 
he  said,  after  a  deadly  pause.  "  Then  I  had  to  get 
into  a  scrap  with  Jake  Steinberger,  and  Willie  Lati- 
mer,  and  George  Wright,  and  there  was  a  hell  of  a 
shindy  till  somebody  turned  in  a  police-alarm,  and 
I  only  dodged  arrest  by  the  skin  of  my  teeth  — 


252  INFATUATION 

not  but  what  I'll  be  summonsed  to-day,  sure  as 
sure.  On  top  of  that  my  engagement  is  gone,  for 
I  lammed  Jake  half  to  death,  and  I  guess  he  had 
rather  break  up  the  tour  all-standing  than  keep  me 
in  the  bill  another  night.  And  —  and — " 

"  You  thought  you'd  make  a  clean  sweep  of 
everything,  once  you  were  at  it,  and  alienate  me, 
too?" 

"  Yes,  like  a  damned  goat,"  he  repeated  dully. 

"  Well,  you  have  succeeded,"  she  said  in  the  same 
low,  even  tone,  "  I  dare  say  you'll  be  sorry  some 
day  at  having  broken  your  toys.  There  isn't  any- 
thing more  to  be  said,  is  there,  except  good-by  ?  " 

She  was  about  to  rise  when  Adair  flung  himself 
out  of  the  bed,  and  kneeling  before  her,  pulled  off 
her  little  slippers  and  began  kissing  her  naked  feet. 
His  repentance  was  so  sudden,  so  abject  that  it  was 
almost  as  though  he  had  gone  crazy.  It  was  indeed 
an  hysterical  revulsion,  and  his  frame  shook,  and 
his  hands  clenched  themselves  on  her  flesh  as  he 
abased  himself  before  her.  He  begged  incoherently 
for  forgiveness,  for  mercy;  he  would  kill  himself 
if  she  were  to  leave  him;  he  loved  her;  he  could 
die  for  her;  the  disgrace  and  despair  of  it  all  had 


INFATUATION  253 

driven  him  mad.  At  first  she  resisted,  struggling 
to  free  herself,  and  too  deeply  affronted  for  any 
atoning  words  to  touch  her;  but  her  powerlessness 
in  his  grasp,  the  warmth  of  rii's  quick,  tumultuous 
breath  against  her,  even  the  physical  pain  he  was 
unconsciously  inflicting  —  all  at  last  took  her 
womanhood  by  storm,  and  she  drew  up  his  head, 
and  allowed  him  to  sob  his  heart  out  in  her  lap. 

How  little  did  either  of  them  know,  she  sitting 
on  the  bed  in  her  night-dress,  he  nestling  close 
against  her  in  an  agony  of  shame  and  contrition, 
that  a  battle  of  the  soul  had  been  fought  and  won; 
that  the  finer  nature  had  triumphed  over  the  coarser ; 
that  an  insensible  but  a  most  real  step  had  been 
taken  upward.  Phyllis  extorted  no  promises ;  Adair 
made  no  vows ;  rather  they  clung  to  each  other  like 
little  children  who  had  safely  passed  the  edge  of 
a  precipice,  and  in  security  beyond  were  trembling 
at  what  they  had  risked. 

The  woman,  always  the  more  practical  partner, 
was  the  first  to  descend  from  the  clouds  to  mundane 
considerations. 

"And  what's  the  poor  little  damned  goat  go- 
ing to  do?"  she  asked,  the  quoted  profanity  on 


254  INFATUATION 

her  pretty  lips  as  piquant  and  tender  as  a  lullaby; 
and  accompanying  it  with  a  smile  so  arch  that 
Adair's  face,  too,  could  not  but  light  with  it. 

"  Face  the  music  and  then  get  out,"  returned 
the  D.  G. 

"  Out  where,  dearest  ?  " 

Adair  grew  overcast. 

"  Mortimer  Clark's  on  the  road  somewhere/'  he 
said  reflectively,  "  and  I'm  sure  he'd  make  room 
for  me  if  he  had  to  fire  a  whole  company.  Then 
there's  Nan  O'Farrell  in  the  Diamond  Diadem 
and  Leo  Foster  in  the  Slaves  of  Circumstance. 
They  are  all  on  the  cheap,  and  would  jump  at  the 
chance  of  getting  me  at  their  prices.  As  soon  as 
I  get  round  to  it,  I'll  telegraph." 

Phyllis  hesitated,  but  at  last  the  words  came. 

"On  the  cheap,"  she  repeated.  "Why  don't 
you  aim  higher,  Cyril  ?  Why  don't  you  try  the  real 
people  —  those  who  are  worth  while,  especially  now, 
when  you're  going  to  break  away  from  Steinber- 
ger?" 

His  only  reply  was  a  shake  of  the  head. 

"  You  know  you're  too  good  for  this  sort  of 
thing,"  she  went  on.  "  It  isn't  flattery  to  tell  you 
that  —  you  see  it  yourself  every  night  —  I  saw  it, 


INFATUATION  255 

and  that's  why  I —  Oh,  Cyril,  let's  try  to  get 
where  you  belong." 

"  You  don't  understand,"  he  said  moodily. 
"  You  don't  understand  a  bit.  I  had  all  that  once, 
and  I  kicked  it  over.  The  stage  is  an  awfully 
small  place  —  for  anybody  that  amounts  to  any- 
thing, you  know  —  though  as  big  as  an  ocean  for 
the  others.  There  isn't  anybody  of  importance  — 
manager  or  star  —  who  doesn't  hate  me."  He 
perceived  the  doubt  in  her  glance,  and  continued 
swiftly:  "Oh,  it's  no  conspiracy,  or  jealousy,  or 
anything  of  that  kind  —  a  tip-top  man  can  over- 
ride all  that  if  there's  money  in  him  for  the  box- 
office  —  but  I've  set  them  all  against  me.  There 
isn't  one  I  haven't  punched  or  insulted  somehow. 
I  hold  the  record  for  being  the  best-detested  man 
on  Broadway.  Why,  Alfred  Fielman  once  —  that 
was  six  years  ago,  when  I  was  by  way  of  being 
a  metropolitan  favorite,  and  all  that,  ha,  ha  —  he 
had  me  on  a  forty  weeks'  contract,  and  at  the  end 
of  three  he  gave  me  a  check  for  the  rest  and  told 
me  he  had  no  more  use  for  my  services.  Thirty- 
seven  weeks'  full  salary  —  think  of  it  —  and  the 
door!" 

"But  isn't  it  different  now?"  asked  Phyllis,  en- 


256  INFATUATION 

folding  him  with  a  pair  of  the  whitest,  softest, 
shapeliest  arms  in  the  world,  and  pressing  her  cheek 
against  his  face.  "  You've  got  good  since  then, 
and  are  now  mama's  little  man ! " 

"  Look  at  last  night,"  protested  mama's  little 
man  dismally.  "  Drinking,  fighting,  gambling,  and 
my  job  out  of  the  window!  That's  been  me  right 
along  —  two  weeks'  notice,  and  for  God's  sake, 
never  come  back !  " 

"  Just  a  damned  goat,"  rippled  Phyllis,  her  teeth 
shining  like  pearls,  and  her  cheeks  dimpling  mis- 
chievously. 

"  A  silly  ass,"  ejaculated  Adair  with  much  self- 
contempt. 

"  Now,  I  want  to  tell  you  my  idea,"  cried  Phyllis. 
"  We're  going  to  pack  up,  poor  booful  disgraced 
genius  —  and  wife  (as  they  add  on  hotel  registers)  ; 
and  we're  going  to  count  our  poor  little  pennies, 
and  take  a  tourist  sleeper  to  New  York,  and  get 
a  little  flat  of  the  sort  they  rent  to  dormice  in 
reduced  circumstances,  and  live  on  air  and  kisses 
and  hope  —  while  poor  Booful  will  go  round  tell- 
ing everybody  he's  a  reformed  character,  and  look- 
ing for  an  engagement.  And  if  the  top  all  hates 
him,  and  if  the  middle  is  all  full,  why  Booful  will 


INFATUATION  257 

begin  at  the  bottom,  while  Mrs.  Booful  will  wash, 
and  cook,  and  darn  his  socks  —  oh,  no,  listen, — 
yes,  and  darn  his  socks,  and  pet  him  when  he  is 
discouraged  and  cross,  and  keep  everything  scrupu- 
lously clean  (in  books  if  you're  awfully  poor,  you're 
always  scrupulously  clean,  haven't  you  noticed  it)  ? 
Yes,  scrupulously  clean,  and  oh,  so  economical  of 
every  nickel  till  everybody  begins  to  see  that  Booful 
isn't  a  damned  goat,  but  a  man  of  splendid  talent, 
and  up,  up,  up  he'll  go  like  a  balloon,  till  there 
won't  be  a  garbage-can  without  his  name  on  it,  or 
a  bill-board  without  somebody  "  presenting  "  him 
in  letters  six  feet  high,  and  fame  and  money  will 
pour  in  like  a  Niagara,  and,  and  —  Cyril,  why 
shouldn't  we?  " 

His  look  of  indulgence  and  amusement  had  grad- 
ually changed  to  downright  eagerness. 

"  If  you  can  stand  it,  I  can,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  Cyril,  I'm  not  afraid  — let's  do  it!" 

"  We'll  be  starvation  poor." 

"  But  in  a  home  of  our  own  —  no  more  of  these 
horrid  hotels,  no  more  traveling,  and  something  big 
to  live  and  hope  for." 

"  Those  dormice  flats  are  awfully  squeezy  — 
and  dark." 


258  INFATUATION 

"  So's  a  robin's  nest,  for  that  matter." 

"And  those  pretty  hands  —  it  would  be  wicked 
to  spoil  them." 

"  Oh,  I  won't  spoil  them  —  besides,  what  would 
be  the  good  of  them  if  they  couldn't  work  for  the 
man  I  love." 

"  Scrubbing  floors,  and  cleaning  kettles  and  pol- 
ishing the  stove  ?  " 

"  You  can  help  a  little." 

"  And  suppose,  instead  of  being  easy,  it's  very- 
hard  ?  It  takes  courage  to  start  again.  You'll 
have  to  be  brave  enough  for  two,  for  I've  none  of 
that  kind  of  grit  or  perseverance.  Do  you  think 
you  can  bolster  up  a  great  big  fellow  like  me,  who'll 
come  home  like  a  baby  and  cry?  " 

"  We'll  bolster  up  each  other." 

"I  —  I  wish  I  was  more  worthy  of  you,  Phyllis." 

"  Stop  kissing  my  toes  —  it  tickles  —  and  oh, 
Cyril,  don't  bite  them!" 

"  I'm  ashamed  —  you  are  so  sweet  and  good  and 
clever  and  brave  —  and  the  whole  of  me  isn't  worth 
that  little  pink  one,  and  I  don't  think  I've  ever 
loved  you  so  much  as  I  do  this  minute,  or 
respected  you  more.  If  you  were  married  to  a 


INFATUATION  259 

street-car  conductor  I  believe  you'd  make  him 
president  of  the  United  States  —  and  if  your  hus- 
band mayn't  bite  you,  who  can  ?  " 

"You  darling!" 

"  And  I  swear  by  that  one  that  I  love  you  bet- 
ter than  anything  in  the  world;  and  by  that  one 
I'll  be  true  to  you  all  my  life;  and  by  that  one  I'll 
cut  my  tongue  out  before  I'll  ever  say  an  unkind 
word  to  you  again;  and  by  that  one  I'm  going  to 
do  everything  you  say,  just  as  though  you  were  an 
angel  from  Heaven,  which  you  are  if  ever  there  was 
one;  and  by  that  fat  little  big  toe  that  I'm  going 
to  try  to  copy  the  tenderest,  gentlest,  most  exquisite 
nature  that  God  ever  breathed  into  a  human  being; 
and  by  the  whole  chubby  little  white  satin  foot  — " 

"  Do  sit  up  —  it's  important" 

"I  thought  it  was  all  settled.  We'll  start  for 
New  York  as  soon  as  I  am  fired  —  officially." 

"Cyril?" 

"Yes,  sweetheart?" 

"  I'm  so  infatuated  with  you  that  perhaps  I  don't 
see  things  as  they  are.  It  is  not  a  dream,  is  it, 
that  you  really  could  get  on  in  New  York  —  I  mean 
if  you  lived  down  all  the  ill  will  against  you  there? 


26b  INFATUATION 

I  try  to  detach  myself,  and  criticize  you  dispas- 
sionately —  but  you  always  seem  to  me  so  tremen- 
dously good." 

"  I  am  good  —  in  my  own  kind  of  work." 

"  You've  no  dread  of  failure  ?  " 

"In  handing  out  the  goods — ?  Not  a  particle, 
Phyllis.  Why  should  I?  Haven't  I  done  it ?" 

"  In  your  New  York  days  ?  " 

"  Why,  Phyllis,  this  isn't  brag.  I've  got  notices 
to  show  for  it,  corking  notices.  What  you  have 
seen  me  do  is  not  my  best.  No  one  could  do  that 
with  the  support  I  get,  and  I  have  to  carry  the  whole 
outfit  single  handed.  A  company  ought  to  be  a 
string  orchestra  —  and  they  give  me  a  brass  band !  " 

"  Have  you  got  the  notices  ?  —  I'd  love  to  see 
them!" 

"  They're  at  the  bottom  of  the  trunk  somewhere 
—  three  books  of  them." 

"  Do  get  them  out,  and  let  me  read  some." 

After  long  rummaging  the  books  were  produced. 
Phyllis,  who  in  the  interval  had  put  on  a  peignoir, 
and  begun  to  comb  her  hair,  seized  on  one  of  them 
enthusiastically.  It  was  an  unwieldy,  shabby  old 
volume,  and  so  heavy  it  was  hard  to  hold.  The 
exertion,  and  perhaps  the  excitement  had  caused 


INFATUATION  261 

Adair's  head  to  throb  again,  and  he  was  glad  to 
stretch  his  length  on  the  bed  while  Phyllis,  draw- 
ing up  a  rocking  chair,  seated  herself  as  close  as 
she  could  beside  him. 

The  actor  had  not  exaggerated  his  past  successes. 
For  three  seasons  he  had  been  a  notable  figure  on 
Broadway,  and  if  his  reputation  had  been  more  one 
of  promise  than  achievement  it  was  in  dazzling  con- 
trast to  what  he  had  since  become.  He  had  himself 
almost  forgotten  the  stir  he  had  made  —  not  the 
deafening  curtain  calls,  the  brimming  box-offices, 
the  deferential  managers, —  none  could  forget  that 
—  but  the  soberer,  yet  more  valuable  evidence  of 
the  critics.  It  was  electrifying  to  listen  to  them 
again ;  to  see  across  the  mean,  intervening  years  that 
other  self  of  his  lording  it  so  high ;  to  realize,  with 
mingled  bitterness,  wonder  and  hope  that  he  was 
still  the  same  man,  with  the  same  if  not  richer 
powers,  and  a  new-born  resolution  to  regain  what 
he  had  so  lightly  valued  and  so  unconcernedly 
thrown  away. 

Phyllis,  pink  with  excitement,  and  tripping  occa- 
sionally over  the  longer  words,  read  notice  after 
notice  with  indefatigable  zest,  constantly  substitut- 
ing Booful  and  other  endearing  epithets  for  the 


262  INFATUATION 

more  formal  name  in  print,  while  her  husband  lay 
back,  listening  delightedly,  and  contributing  excla- 
mations, "  By  George,  and  it  was  William  Winter 
who  said  that !  " — "  Say,  that's  Huneker,  isn't  it  ?  " 
"  A  column  in  The  World  isn't  handed  out  to 
everybody,  not  by  a  long  sight." 

BOOFUL  OPENS  AT  WALLACK'S 
THE  HONOR  OF  THE  REGIMENT  PLEASES,  BUT 

NEEDS  CUTTING. 

THE  STAR  SCORES  AS  MOODY  HERO,  AND  EXCELS 

HIMSELF  IN  MAGNIFICENT  PORTRAYAL  OF 

EBHARDT. 

"  Those  who  went  last  night  to  see  Booful  were 
not  disappointed,  however  they  may  have  disagreed 
about  the  play  itself.  For  that  brilliant  young 
darling  it  was  hardly  less  than  a  personal  triumph, 
and  from  the  rise  of  the  curtain — " 

It  was  a  very  inconsiderate  moment  for  a  heavy 
rap  at  the  door. 

"  Come  in,"  cried  Adair. 

In  the  shadow  stood  a  bulky  figure  —  a  blue 
figure  —  a  figure  with  something  shining  on  its 
swelling  chest.  Phyllis  looked  and  quailed  as  the 
bravest  of  us  do  at  the  sight  of  the  Law,  intruding 


INFATUATION  263 

its  hob-nailed  boot  into  what  is  metaphorically 
termed  our  castle.  In  this  case  the  castle  was  so 
small,  and  the  Law  so  large  and  red  and  impressive 
that  the  former  seemed  but  a  trifling  refuge  against 
oppression.  In  the  accents  of  a  green  and  troubled 
island  the  new-comer  asked :  "  Are  you  Misther 
Adair  —  Misther  Surul  Adair?  " 

"  That's  me,  all  right,"  said  the  actor. 

"  You're  summonsed  for  assault  and  battery,  and 
here's  the  payper,  and  it's  before  Judge  Dunn  ye're 
to  come  at  two  o'clock." 

"Where  do  I  go,  officer?" 

"  The  city  hall,  police  court  number  one." 

"  Two  o'clockt  you  say  ?  Very  good.  Tell 
Judge  Dunn  I  have  much  pleasure  in  accepting  his 
kind  invitation." 

The  functionary  unbent  genially. 

"  Tay  will  be  served  on  the  lawn,"  he  said,  "  and 
the  Marine  Band  will  be  in  attendance,  and  some  of 
our  younger  set  will  be  there  —  in  blue." 

It  seemed  incredible  to  poor,  trembling  Phyllis 
that  Adair  could  burst  out  laughing.  But  he  did, 
and  that  with  every  indication  of  undiminished 
spirits. 

"  All  right,  officer,  I'll  be  there." 


264  INFATUATION 

"  Good  morning,  sorr." 

"  Good  morning,  officer." 

The  tears  were  streaming  down  Phyllis'  face  as 
she  ran  to  Adair,  and  threw  her  arms  around  his 
neck ;  but  he  caressed  and  comforted  her,  and  grad- 
ually got  her  to  smile  again. 

"  I  feel  better,"  he  said.  "  Be  a  dear,  and  make 
me  some  fresh  coffee. —  Oh,  Phyllis,  isn't  it  jolly !  " 

"Jolly?     Oh,  how  can  you — " 

"  Oh,  I  mean  about  going  back  to  New  York ! 
A  fellow  who's  hit  them  once  can  hit  them 
again,  and  by  George,  with  you  to  help  me,  I  just 
know  Pm  bound  to  land !  " 

"  But  this  awful  police  court !  " 

"  Don't  worry  about  that  —  they've  never  hanged 
a  Free  Mason  yet. —  Easy  with  the  cream,  sweet- 
heart.—  Where  was  it  we  left  off?  Oh,  yes,  here 
it  is:  'Adair  opens  at  Wallack's.  Those  who 
went  last  night  to  see  Cyril  Adair  — '  " 


From  the  Leamington  Courier  of  November  28th,  190 — 
AMUSING  SCENE  IN  JUDGE  DUNN'S  COURT 


Yesterday  the  proceedings 
in  Judge  Dunn's  court  were 
enlivened  by  the  presence  of 
Cyril  Adair  the  actor,  who, 
on  the  complaint  of  Jacob 
Steinberger,  his  manager,  and 
Messrs.  Willard  Latimer  and 
George  Augustus  Wright, 
brother  players,  was  haled  be- 
fore the  bar  of  justice  for  as- 
sault and  battery.  The  three 
complainants  showed  unmis- 
takable traces  of  a  fistic  en- 
counter, and  there  was  a 
subdued  ripple  of  merriment 
at  their  bandaged  appearance. 
The  encounter  was  the  out- 
come of  a  midnight  game  of 
poker,  and  there  was  a  direct 
conflict  of  evidence  as  to  who 
began  the  fray. 

Judge  Dunn  finally  summed 
up  against  the  defendant,  and 
in  default  of  a  fine,  ordered 
him  to  find  personal  security 
to  be  of  good  behavior  for 
three  months.  Much  amuse- 
ment was  then  caused  by  Mrs. 
Adair  unexpectedly  stepping 
forward,  and  pleading  most 


charmingly  with  the  judge  to 
permit  her  to  assume  the  ob- 
ligation. The  court  was  un- 
able to  resist  so  attractive  a 
bit  of  femininity,  and  though 
remarking  it  was  somewhat 
irregular,  consented,  amid 
general  laughter,  to  grant 
her  request. 

The  judge  made  up  for  it, 
however,  by  giving  the  de- 
fendant a  stiff  little  lecture 
before  dismissing  the  case,  ex- 
pressing his  surprise  that  the 
husband  of  so  young  and  pret- 
ty a  wife  should  care  to  pass 
the  early  morning  hours  at 
poker  and  fisticuffs.  Adair 
accepted  the  rebuke  with 
great  good  nature  and 
prompted  by  his  wife  thanked 
his  honor  for  his  forbearance, 
adding  to  the  general  hilarity 
by  repeating  aloud  some  of 
the  advice  that  was  being 
whispered  in  his  ear.  Apol- 
ogies followed  outside,  and 
the  whole  party  returned  to 
their  hotel  in  the  same  hack. 
All's  well  that  ends  well! 


265 


CHAPTER  XX 

ADAIR  waited  until  Christmas  before  sever- 
ing his  connection  with  Steinberger.     The 
holidays  were  bad  for  theatrical  business, 
and  the  prospect  of  a  temporarily  reduced  salary 
and  several  extra  matinees  seemed  to  make  this 
period  an  auspicious  one  for  departure.     With  two 
hundred  and  eighty  dollars,  their  trunks,  the  clothes 
they  stood  in,  and  hearts  beating  high  with  eager- 
ness and  hope,  the  pair  took  the  train  for  the  City 
of  Success. 

Even  on  their  way  to  it  their  respective  positions 
began  to  change.  The  actor,  for  all  his  broad 
shoulders  and  big  voice  and  commanding  presence, 
betrayed  from  the  first  a  helplessness  and  depen- 
dence that  both  pleased  and  surprised  his  little  wife. 
He  anxiously  deferred  to  her  in  everything;  fell  in 
readily  with  every  suggestion;  listened  with  pro- 
found respect  to  her  plans.  He  knew  New  York 
inside  out;  poverty  was  no  stranger  to  him,  nor 

266 


INFATUATION  267 

the  makeshifts  and  struggles  of  the  poor;  yet  in  the 
crisis  of  their  fortunes  it  was  the  girl  that  took  the 
lead  —  the  girl  who  had  never  suffered  a  single 
privation  in  her  life,  who  had  been  reared  in  luxury, 
to  whom  money  and  ease  were  as  the  air  she 
breathed. 

Left  to  his  own  unguided  will  Adair  would  have 
gravitated  to  a  dingy  bedroom  in  a  dingy  boarding- 
house.  It  was  Phyllis  who  perceived  the  greater 
freedom,  and  the  unspeakably  greater  comfort  and 
charm  of  a  tiny  apartment.  The  nest-making  in- 
stinct was  strong  in  her,  and  also  the  bred-in-the- 
bone  belief  that  it  was  the  woman's  place  to  guard 
her  man's  well-being,  and  to  send  him  forth  to  work 
in  the  best  of  trim.  She  did  not  know  how  to 
cook;  she  had  never  swept  out  a  room  in  her  life, 
she  had  never  even  folded  a  table-cloth,  yet  her 
self-assurance  and  determination  never  wavered. 
All  this  could  be  learned  —  pooh,  it  only  needed 
hard  work  and  intelligence, —  she  would  answer  for 
its  being  the  nicest  little  flat  in  New  York,  and 
would  dismiss  Adair  every  morning  in  his  best 
clothes,  smiling,  well-fed,  and  happy,  to  look  for  an 
engagement. 

Brave,  confident  little  heart!     Intent  little  head 


268  INFATUATION 

absorbed  in  calculations;  magic  the  love  that  could 
cast  effulgence  over  those  soiled  green  notes,  and 
the  phantom  gray  city,  and  the  man,  none  too  good. 
or  wise  on  whom  such  a  treasure  of  devotion  was 
lavished!  But  some  conception  of  it  pierced  his 
thick  skin,  and  what  there  was  in  him  that  was  un- 
selfish and  noble  felt  disquieted  at  the  contrast,  and 
strangely  stirred  and  humbled. 

"  Phyllis,"  he  said  huskily,  "  I  —  I  didn't  know 
what  love  meant  until  I  met  you.  I  guess  lots  of 
men  go  all  their  lives  and  never  know.  I've  been 
sitting  back  here,  thinking  how  nearly  I  might 
have  missed  it." 

"  And  getting  quite  scared  and  worried  ?  —  The 
poor  precious!  If  it  wasn't  for  the  conductor  and 
that  bald-headed  man  who's  sure  we're  not  mar- 
ried, because  I  put  my  feet  on  the  seat,  and  wear 
red  stockings  —  I'd  kiss  you  right  now,  and  give 
you  a  gurgle  hug !  " 

"  There  are  lots  like  me,"  Adair  went  on  with  un- 
affected seriousness,  "  but,  Phyllis,  there  is  only 
one  of  you.  I  suppose  people  are  born  like  that 
sometimes  —  just  one  of  them  —  and  there  aren't 
any  more. —  When  we  get  round  to  it,  we  must 


INFATUATION  269 

have  children;  you  mustn't  be  allowed  to  die  and 
disappear;  it  wouldn't  be  right  by  the  world." 

Phyllis  wrote  down :  "  Pair  tea-cups  and  sau- 
cers, thirty  cents,"  and  announced  that  in  the  mean- 
while the  world  would  have  to  wait,  as  one  couldn't 
do  everything  at  once.  She  added  a  duster  to  the 
list  and  a  pie-pan,  while  a  smile  hovered  at  the 
corners  of  her  lips.  It  impelled  her  to  press  her 
knee  against  Adair's,  and  whisper  something  so 
sparklingly  improper  that  he  blushed.  Then  she 
returned  to  housekeeping  considerations  with  a 
pleased  and  saucy  air,  never  so  happy  as  when  she 
had  embarrassed  him. 

Accommodation  for  dormice,  although  plentiful, 
left  much  to  be  desired,  except  for  dormice  fond 
of  grubbiness,  gloom,  and  ill-smelling  passages  and 
halls.  For  dormice  willing  to  live  on  One-hun- 
dred-and-jump-off-the-earth  Street  there  was  light 
and  air,  and  reasonably  sized  rooms,  and  even 
skimpy  glimpses  of  the  Hudson.  But  Cyril  wished 
to  be  near  the  theater  district  and  the  Thespian 
Club  of  which  he  was  a  member,  and  this  restricted 
their  choice  to  below  Fifty-ninth  Street.  Heavens, 
what  innumerable  janitors  they  raised  from  the 


270  INFATUATION 

depths,  what  miles  and  miles  of  stairs  they  climbed, 
what  desperate  moments  of  indecision  they  endured, 
as,  utterly  spent,  the  precious  deposit  was  nearly 
tempted  from  their  pockets! 

At  last,  however,  at  the  tail  of  the  most  offensive 
little  man  in  New  York,  whose  questions  included 
the  likelihood  or  not  of  an  increase  in  the  family, 
and  who  had  to  be  specifically  assured  that  his 
new  tenants  meditated  starting  neither  a  bagnio  nor 
a  sweatshop,  nor  were  going  to  teach  music,  or  keep 
naphtha  on  the  premises  —  at  the  tail  of  this  person- 
age, who  at  every  step  remembered  some  fresh  pro- 
hibition, and  some  fresh  possibility,  the  ideal  was 
reached  on  the  seventh  floor  of  a  house  between 
Second  and  Third  Avenue.  It  was  a  box  of  a  place 
—  sitting-room,  bedroom,  kitchen  and  bath  —  but 
shiny  new,  and  with  every  window  open  to  the  sun. 
and  Fifty-eighth  Street  to  look  out  on  instead  of 
some  dismal  rear.  It  was  taken  at  twenty-one  dol- 
lars a  month;  their  trunks  followed  them  in;  and 
they  camped  out  their  second  night  in  New  York 
on  the  bare  boards  of  their  new  home. 

With  all  our  talk  of  the  value  of  money  very 
few  of  us  have  any  conception  of  it.  How  many  at 
least  could  believe  that  a  small  apartment  in  New 


INFATUATION  271 

York  could  be  furnished,  and  prettily  furnished,  for 
a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars?  On  a  doll-baby  scale, 
of  course,  with  pictures  taken  from  the  ten  cent 
weeklies,  and  framed  in  blue  creton  and  the  same 
invaluable  material  accomplishing-  wonders  over 
packing  cases,  improvised  into  wash-stands,  bureaus 
and  seats.  Phyllis  sent  Adair  off  to  the  club,  and 
set  to  work  alone.  She  did  not  want  him  to  see 
her  dirty,  tousled,  and  wearing  an  old  dressing- 
gown  of  his  in  that  chaos  of  disorder;  though  she 
presented  a  sweeter  figure  than  she  knew  on  her 
knees  beside  the  pail,  and  scrubbing  the  floor  like 
a  little  stage  soubrette,  or  hammering  creton  with 
her  mouth  full  of  tacks  and  an  inspired  expression 
that  would  have  befitted  a  Madonna.  She  was  too 
girlish,  too  young,  for  anything  to  harm  her  beauty, 
and  so  gay  and  charming  that  all  who  came  fell 
under  her  spell.  Gawky  messengers  helped  to  move 
boxes,  nail  down  matting,  and  elucidate  the  mys- 
teries of  setting  up  a  bed.  The  janitor's  wife,  a 
faded  German  woman  with  gentle  eyes  and  a  soft 
voice,  and  all  the  European's  respect  for  caste,  in- 
sisted on  joining  in;  and  when,  Phyllis,  with  diffi- 
culty and  some  shame,  managed  to  explain  she  was 
unable  to  pay  for  such  services,  the  creature  kissed 


272  INFATUATION 

her  hand,  and  redoubled  her  exertions.  Beauty  is 
a  power  everywhere,  and  if  the  poor  can  not  pay 
its  toll  in  compliments,  they  can  wash  windows, 
clean  up  litter,  and  carry  an  offering1  of  frankfurters 
and  sauerkraut  up  six  flights  of  stairs;  and  with 
many  an  "  Ach  "  and  "  lieber  Go  ft "  urge  the  little 
"  high-born  "  to  rest  and  eat. 

And  so  amid  kindliness  and  good  will,  the  tiny 
apartment  was  got  into  shape,  while  the  dark  wild 
days  without  turned  to  snow,  and  the  frosted  panes 
showed  nothing  through  but  white  and  desolation. 
The  dormice  lay  snug  in  their  nest,  and  though 
their  money  ebbed,  and  the  cupboard  was  next  to 
bare,  and  the  household  work  at  times  weighed 
hardly  on  ^unaccustomed,  slender  shoulders,  perhaps 
they  were  too  near  Heaven  to  complain. 

Adair  had  never  been  a  very  respectable  nor  pop- 
ular member  of  the  Thespian  Club,  that  influential 
organization  from  which  the  New  York  stage  is  so 
largely  recruited;  and  the  return  of  the  lost  sheep 
was  not  accompanied  by  any  particular  enthusiasm. 
But  Adair  was  too  noticeable  a  man,  and  his  talent 
too  well  remembered  for  his  presence  not  to  cause 
some  stir,  and  soon  there  was  comment  on  his  ex- 
traordinary change  for  the  better.  He  was  cer- 


INFATUATION  273 

tainly  no  longer  the  loud,  swaggering,  over-dressed 
Adair  of  the  old  days,  with  the  dubious  geniality, 
and  the  restless  eyes.  He  did  not  drink ;  he  seemed 
to  have  lost  his  surly  streak;  in  many  other  ways 
more  indefinite  he  had  softened  and  improved.  The 
Thespians,  who  were  nothing  if  not  good-natured 
and  generous,  very  willingly  let  bygones  be  by- 
gones, and  some  of  the  more  important  began  to 
suggest  his  name  to  managers. 

But  the  managers  were  made  of  sterner  stuff  than 
the  actors  and  playwrights;  they  had  longer  mem- 
ories, and  skins  that  still  smarted.  They  brightened 
at  the  name  of  Adair  for  the  unexpected  pleasure 
it  gave  them  to  say  "  No."  Each  had  his  special 
wrong  to  avenge,  each  his  emphatic  and  passionate 
denunciation  of  a  man  they  abominated.  "  I've 
only  two  rules  in  running  my  theaters,"  said  Mr. 
Fielman.  "  The  first  is  to  give  the  public  the  best 
that  money  can  buy;  the  second,  never  to  engage 
Mr.  Cyril  Adair !  "—  Mr.  Paw  went  further :  "  My 
poy,  they  say  in  our  peeziness  that  the  box-office 
talks,  but  if  it  said  Adair  all  day  and  all  night,  I'd 
sooner  get  out  and  sell  shoe-laces  on  the  street  than 
see  his  damn  sneering  face  in  any  broduction  of 
mine ! "  Niedringer  was  no  more  encouraging, 


274 

and  the  Fordingham  Brothers  were  curt  and  pro- 
fane. 

But  the  New  York  theatrical  world  is  a  big  one; 
and  these  giants,  while  of  enormous  importance,  do 
not  rule  all  the  roost.  There  are  always  new  pro- 
ducers bobbing  up;  stars  themselves  make  ven- 
tures into  management  and  branch  out;  many  oth- 
ers, independent  on  a  smaller  scale,  choose  the 
companies  that  support  them.  Then  there  are  the 
second  class  houses,  the  vaudeville  houses,  the  stock 
companies  —  all  requiring  an  army  of  professional 
people.  Then,  too,  hardly  a  season  passes  without 
several  incoming  actors  from  some  woolly,  wild,  un- 
heard-of region,  arriving,  full  of  eagerness  to  add 
Broadway  laurels  to  brows  already  crowned  in 
Teepee  City  or  Nuggetville,  Nevada.  Add  to  these, 
imported  English  companies  with  the  lesser  parts 
often  unfilled,  and  "  angels,"  both  male  and  female, 
with  barrels  of  money  for  some  stagestruck  pet, 
who,  desirous  of  a  short  cut  to  greatness,  insists 
on  beginning  (and  usually  ending)  at  the  top;  — 
and  you  will  have  some  small  conception  of  what 
New  York  is  —  theatrically. 

Adair  did  not  despair.  Not  only  was  the  at- 
mosphere of  the  Thespian  Club  too  redolent  of  sue- 


INFATUATION  275 

cess  for  that,  but  he  was  sustained  besides  by  a 
couple  of  small  offers  which  he  received  for  the 
"  road."  Determined  though  he  was  to  appear  on 
Broadway,  it  was  good  for  his  courage  and  per- 
severence  to  have  these  engagements  to  refuse. 
They  served  to  take  the  edge  off  the  rebuffs  he 
constantly  experienced,  and  gave  him  something  not 
altogether  mournful  to  reflect  on  as  he  waited  in- 
terminable hours  in  agents'  and  managers'  ante- 
rooms. Not  but  what  there  were  times  when  it 
was  almost  unendurable.  Rejection,  with  an  actor, 
carries  with  it  a  personal  mortification;  and  his  air 
of  fashion,  his  nosegay,  his  smartly  folded  overcoat, 
his  affected  jauntiness  —  all  intensify  by  their  con- 
trast the  bitterness  of  his  lot.  He  slinks  off  with 
pitiful  bravado,  and  eyes  suspiciously  bright,  to  pull 
himself  together  for  another  attempt  at  another 
place,  as  dispirited  a  figure  as  any  to  be  seen  under 
heaven. 

While  Adair,  with  an  effort  as  clumsy  as  it  was 
touching,  strove  to  hide  his  disappointment  from 
his  wife,  and  put  by  in  their  little  home  a  steadily 
deepening  sense  of  failure  —  she,  on  her  side,  was 
keeping  him  in  ignorance  of  a  matter  that  troubled 
her  exceedingly.  Her  father  had  begun  to  write 


276  INFATUATION 

to  her,  but  in  such  a  way  that  a  reconciliation,  in- 
stead of  becoming  nearer,  seemed  more  remote  and 
impossible  than  ever.  With  all  his  tenderness  and 
longing,  and  almost  pathetic  appeal  "  to  be  friends 
again,"  he  was  unable  to  resist  taking  flings  at 
Adair.  His  hatred  for  the  man  came  out  in  im- 
plications and  covert  allusions  Phyllis  could  not 
forgive.  Ostensibly  holding  out  the  olive  branch, 
his  letters  served  instead  to  heighten  the  estrange- 
ment, for  behind  everything  was  his  conviction  it 
was  simply  her  pride  that  kept  them  apart;  that 
having  made  a  mess  of  her  life,  and  committed  an 
irreparable  folly,  she  was  defiantly  accepting  the 
misery  she  had  brought  down  upon  herself.  That 
she  was  insanely  happy  —  that  she  adored  her  hus- 
band —  that  neither  poverty  nor  hardship  counted  a 
jot  in  her  decision  —  all  these  to  Mr.  Ladd  were 
incredibilities. —  Yet  the  same  story  dressed  up  for 
him  on  the  stage  or  in  a  book,  would  have  won  his 
sympathy,  and  reached  his  heart. —  Of  such  incon- 
sistencies are  we  made,  and  the  poor  puppets  are 
cried  over  when  flesh  and  blood  is  denied. 

Of  course,  Phyllis  was  abnormally  sensitive. 
Had  her  husband  secured  a  good  engagement,  and 
some  recognition  she  would  have  been  in  a  more 


INFATUATION  277 

receptive  mind  to  receive  her  father's  advances. 
But  Adair's  unspoken  anxiety,  their  diminishing 
money,  their  meager  meals  and  the  need  that  they 
had  to  take  account  of  every  penny  —  here  were  so 
many  reasons  to  accentuate  her  critical  faculties. — 
And  this  to  be  held  as  a  proof  that  she  had  been 
"  dragged  down "  was  altogether  too  much.  At 
first,  full  of  eagerness  and  over  many  a  closely- 
written  page  she  had  tried  to  explain  matters  to 
her  father;  but  his  disbelief  was  chilling,  and  from 
hopelessness  her  feelings  gradually  changed  to 
anger.  For  a  couple  of  weeks  she  had  kept  the 
thousand-dollar  check  he  had  sent  her,  hoping  that 
he  would  so  far  relent  toward  Adair  that  she  might 
accept  it  without  disloyalty.  Then,  chagrined,  she 
had  returned  it,  though  her  extremity  was  bitter,  and 
the  tears  dripped  over  the  letter  that  bore  it  back. 
No  reconciliation  was  possible  that  did  not  include 
her  husband,  or  that  was  offered  to  him  contemptu- 
ously and  grudgingly.  If  this  were  impossible  she 
begged  her  father  to  write  no  more,  and  spare  her 
further  suffering.  His  answer  was  as  unreasonable 
as  the  others,  and  he  contrived  to  wound  even  while 
he  thought  he  was  conceding  everything. 

His  next  letter  she  sent  back  unopened,  and  also 


278  INFATUATION 

the  one  after  that.  Then  there  were  no  more,  and 
the  postman's  whistle  presaged  nothing  after  that 
but  a  post  card  from  Tommy.  These,  with  pictures 
of  a  local  court  house,  or  a  new  Masonic  building, 
or  some  bald  park,  were  almost  daily  visitors.  But 
they  spoke  of  affection  and  remembrance,  and  to  a 
sad  heart  were  not  without  their  comfort. 

Early  one  afternoon  the  sound  of  the  key  in  the 
lock  warned  her  that  Adair  had  unexpectedly  re- 
turned. His  face  announced  his  good  news  before 
he  could  so  much  as  utter  a  word,  and  then  the 
facts  came  out  in  a  panting,  breathless  torrent. 
Shamus  O'Dowd  —  she  knew  Shamus  O'Dowd, 
the  Irish  comedian  ?  —  No  ?  —  What,  never  heard 
of  Shamus  O'Dowd?  —  Well,  anyway,  O'Dowd 
was  at  the  Herald  Square  —  big  business  —  seats 
selling  three  weeks  in  advance  —  A  Broth  of  a  Boy, 
you  know  —  and  the  fellow  who  was  playing  Cap- 
tain Carleton  had  dropped  out,  and  the  under- 
study wasn't  satisfactory  —  and  —  and  —  it  was 
seventy-five  dollars  a  week  —  and  here  were  the 
lines  —  and  you  could  have  knocked  him  over  with 
a  feather  when  O'Dowd  came  right  up  to  him  at 
the  club,  and  fixed  it  up  in  five  minutes,  and  they 


INFATUATION  279 

had  run  through  a  rehearsal  to  give  him  a  notion 
of  the  business,  and  it  was  a  damned  good  character 
part,  and  —  then,  I  wonder  if  that  twenty-one  dol- 
lar apartment  had  ever  seen  the  like  —  with  Phyllis 
sitting  in  Booful's  lap,  and  her  arms  tight  around 
his  neck,  and  talking  two  to  his  one,  all  rapture  and 
exclamations  as  though  he  had  done  something  ex- 
traordinary instead  of  merely  getting  a  job;  and 
Booful,  no  less  proud  and  foolish  and  excited  felt, 
too,  he  had  done  something  extraordinary,  holding 
to  the  lines  as  though  they  were  a  patent  of  no- 
bility, and  crazy  to  begin  the  study  of  them;  and 
describing  the  play  with  such  humor  and  absurdity 
that  his  little  wife  thought  she  had  never  heard 
anything  so  funny  in  her  life,  her  teeth  shining 
as  she  laughed  and  laughed  —  especially  at 
O'Dowd,  who  was  described  as  fifty,  with  a  bull- 
neck,  and  ever  too  much  of  him  in  front  and  be- 
hind, with  a  very  short  coat,  and  bounding  fat 
legs,  and  such  a  Broth  of  a  Boy  that  he  was  ready 
to  fight  or  dance  or  sing  or  make  love  at  the  drop 
of  a  hat,  and  generally  to  caper  from  sheer  exuber- 
ance of  Irish  youth. —  Then  Booful  turned  sud- 
denly serious,  and  got  up,  and  said  that  on  no,  no 
account  was  he  to  be  disturbed,  and  began  to  pace 


s8o  INFATUATION 

like  a  lion  up  and  down  the  doll-baby  sitting-room, 
mumbling  his  part  to  himself  with  a  far-away  ex- 
pression, and  an  occasional  frown  and  swear  as  he 
missed  a  word;  while  Phyllis,  pretending  to  sew, 
squeezed  herself  into  a  corner,  and  made  as  though 
she  was  not  watching  him,  which  she  did  in  timid 
little  peeps,  thinking  how  handsome  he  was  and 
noble  and  manly  and  splendid,  with  such  returning 
recollections  of  his  devotion,  and  gentleness,  and 
simple,  unrepining  courage  in  the  hard  days  now 
fast  finishing,  that  she  could  have  swooned  from 
very  tenderness. 

A  Broth  of  a  Boy  was  a  typical  Irish  drama. 
The  central  figure  was  a  rollicking  imbecile,  with  :i 
tuneful  voice  and  the  customary  shillelah,  who  foils 
the  wicked  mortgager,  chucks  colleens  under  the 
chin,  does  a  hair-raising  leap  over  a  waterfall,  and 
is  altogether  so  Brothy  and  gay  that  no  one  can 
resist  him.  The  usual  British  officer,  condemned 
to  carry  out  an  unpalatable  order,  and  falling  under 
the  spell  of  a  pair  of  saucy  Irish  eyes,  is  found 
not  to  be  half  so  bad  a  fellow  as  we  had  anticipated ; 
and  though  a  good  deal  of  a  booby,  and  the  target 
for  sarcasms  that  he  is  too  obtusely  English  to  per- 
ceive, gradually  wins  the  toleration  and  even  the 


INFATUATION  281 

affection  of  the  gallery.  In  real  life  he  would 
probably  have  been  court-martialed  for  his  arrant 
disregard  of  instructions,  nor  would  a  bare-legged 
milk-maid  have  been  considered  quite  the  prize  the 
dramatist  deemed  her. —  But  one  mustn't  criticize 
this  dreamy  region  too  harshly.  That  great  baby, 
the  public,  loves  it, —  and  in  the  theater-world  there 
is  plenty  of  room  for  this  grotesque  Ireland,  and 
always  will  be;  and  baby's  patronage  feeds  many 
worthy  and  deserving  people,  who  otherwise  might 
have  not  a  little  trouble  of  it  to  live. 

Yes,  let  us  be  lenient  toward  the  Irish  drama. 
It  brought  seventy-five  dollars  a  week  to  that  little 
apartment  high  up  in  East  Fifty-eighth  Street,  and 
hope  and  courage  to  hearts  that  were  beginning  to 
falter. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

IN  the  whole  house  that  night  of  Adair's  return 
to  Broadway  there  was  probably  but  one  per- 
son in  front  who  was  even  aware  that  the 
bill  had  been  changed.  That  rapt  little  spectator 
waited  with  her  heart  in  her  mouth  for  the  actor's 
appearance,  and  thrilled  herself  with  fairy  tales 
while  the  play  ponderously  opened,  and  took  its 
course.  Adair  would  be  recognized;  there  would 
be  a  wild  demonstration  of  welcome;  cheers,  ap- 
plause, yes,  an  ovation,  with  people  standing  up, 
and  the  gallery  in  an  uproar !  —  It  was  a  dream,  of 
course,  a  phantasy,  for  her  head  was  too  squarely 
set  on  her  shoulders  to  count  on  anything  of  the 
sort,  but  nevertheless  it  exhilarated  her  enough  to 
make  the  reality  doubly,  trebly  disappointing. 

His  entrance  was  unheralded  by  a  single  hand- 
clap, O'Dowd  having  just  retired  amid  thunders, 
with  part  of  the  audience  still  insistently  humming 
the  refrain  of  Sweet  Kitty  O'Rourke,  (words  by 

282 


INFATUATION  283 

Stevowsky;  music  by  Cohen).     Adair's  first   few 
lines    were    altogether    lost    in    consequence,    the 
scene  beginning  in  vehement  pantomine,   and  the 
house  only  gradually,  and  with  extreme  unwilling- 
ness, resigning  itself  to  the  exit  of  the  star.     It 
must  be  said  they  had  some  right  to  regret  him. 
Adair  was  anxious  and  forced,  and  so  "desperately 
in  earnest  to  be  funny  that  he  suggested  a  marion- 
ette.    Phyllis'  surprise  turned  to  dismay,  and  dis- 
may to  an  inexpressible  pain.     That  he  won  many 
a  boorish  laugh  only  heightened  her  misery.     It 
was  worse  than  bad,  it  was  common,  and  she  could 
have  bent  clown  and  cried  in  very  shame.     But  in 
the  throes  of  her  despair  she  was  watchful,  and  her 
pretty  brows  corrugated  with  the  intensity  of  her 
attention.     Poor   though   the   part   was,   surely   it 
could  be  done  better,  oh,  so  much  better;  and  if 
only  she  dared  — !     An  infinite  compassion  dimmed 
her  eyes,  an  infinite  pity,  for  was  it  not  for  her  he 
had  stooped  to  this  vile  clowning,  debasing  himself, 
blowing  out  his  cheeks  like  a  turkey-gobbler,  fever- 
ishly catching  at  every  trick  to  get  a  grin  or  a  titter? 
All  this  sacrifice  of  dignity,  manhood  and  self-re- 
spect to  keep  the  poor  little  pot  boiling  on  Fifty- 
eighth  Street? 


284  INFATUATION 

It  was  terrible  to  sit  through  the  play,  and  to 
realize  with  more  and  more  conviction  that  this 
sacrifice  was  unnecessary  —  that  the  role,  straight- 
forwardly acted,  and  the  comic-policeman  side  of 
it  ignored,  might  be  made  into  something  worth 
doing  —  not  very  much  worth  doing  of  course  — 
but  still  redeemed  from  utter  banality.  But  Phyllis 
knew  how  her  husband  bristled  at  the  least  touch 
of  criticism.  Ordinarily  so  loving  and  indulgent,  a 
single  word  of  disapprobation  could  set  him  off  like 
an  hysterical  woman;  before  now  she  had  inad- 
vertently raised  such  storms,  and  looked  back  on 
them  with  terror.  She  asked  herself  what  she  was 
to  do,  and  could  find  no  answer.  Everything  in 
her  revolted  from  lying  to  him,  and  yet  she  would 
be  forced  to.  It  was  not  cowardice,  but  the  dis- 
inclination of  seeing  him  suffer,  and  the  dread  of 
incurring  the  harshness  and  anger  of  the  man  she 
idolized.  Enmity  in  his  eyes  seemed  to  strike  her 
to  the  ground;  her  heart  stopped  beating;  something 
seemed  to  die  within  her. —  No,  at  any  cost,  she 
must  lie,  lie,  lie. 

She  waited  for  him  at  the  stage-door,  a  slight 
dejected  figure  under  the  gaslights,  and  conscious 


INFATUATION  285 

for  the  first  time  that  her  clothes  were  shabby,  and 
that  her  gloves  were  old  and  worn.  O'Dowd's 
carriage  stood  by,  and  she  envied  the  coachman  his 
warm  fur  collar,  and  with  it  came  the  thought  of 
all  she  had  given  up  to  marry  Adair.  This  put 
her  in  better  spirits,  for  she  was  pleased  with  every- 
thing that  enhanced  her  love,  and  gave  it  an  unusual 
and  romantic  quality  —  so  that  for  a  moment  she 
seemed  less  cold,  less  sad,  and  a  delicious  heroine- 
feeling  enshrouded  her.  Had  it  not  been  for  the 
fear  of  what  was  to  come  she  would  have  been 
altogether  happy.  But  a  pang  of  apprehension  shot 
through  her,  and  all  the  pretty  fancies  engendered 
by  the  fur  collar  of  a  sudden  disappeared. —  She 
was  again  standing  on  the  wintry  street,  tired, 
frightened,  and  disheartened. 

Adair  emerged  in  a  jubilant  humor,  and  squeezed 
her  arm  as  he  passed  his  own  through  hers,  and 
moved  in  the  direction  of  the  cars.  Boisterous  and 
gay,  he  was  in  no  mood  to  notice  Phyllis'  con- 
straint, and  took  her  approval  for  granted  as  he 
overflowed  with  talk.  It  was  a  great  relief  to  her 
to  remain  silent,  and  nestle  close  to  all  that  bigness 
and  confidence,  and  be  borne  along  by  that  strong 


286  INFATUATION 

arm.  All  her  doubts  and  fears  were  lost  in  an 
unreasoning  gladness,  and  what  did  anything  mat- 
ter but  love? 

Meanwhile  the  genial  tide  of  Adair's  discourse 
continued  without  intermission. —  O'Dowd,  who 
was  a  prince  of  good  fellows,  had  patted  him  on 
the  back.  Eddie  Phelps  was  up  in  the  air,  too,  and 
said  he  had  simply  walked  away  from  the  other 
man  —  and  oh,  how  good  it  was  to  be  in  a  theater 
again!  It  was  a  piffling  part,  but  after  all  it  was 
something  to  have  made  the  best  of  it,  to  have 
shown  them  what  could  be  done  in  it  by  a  first 
class  man.  That  was  the  beauty  of  the  stage  —  a 
real  actor  could  take  a  janitor  or  an  organ-grinder 
and  create  a  lot  out  of  nothing.  Did  she  know 
that  all  that  business  in  the  second  act  was  his?  — 
Yes,  positively  —  every  bit  of  it  his,  and  no  wonder 
O'Dowd  hugged  him  at  the  wings,  and  said  it  was 
great  —  yes,  just  like  that  —  before  everybody! 
You  see,  it  had  pulled  up  the  whole  thing  where  it 
had  used  to  drag,  giving  it  zip  and  go.  Eddie 
Phelps  said  that  the  other  fellow  had  never  got  a 
hand  there.  He  had  done  better  than  that,  hadn't 
he?  And  if  it  hadn't  been  such  a  damned  feeder 


It  is  not  possible  you  — you  didn't  like  it?— Pase  28? 


INFATUATION  287 

for  the  star  —  oh,  well,  success  was  success,  if  it 
were  only  an  inch  high ! 

In  this  strain  of  self-laudation,  Adair  boarded 
a  car,  and  praised  himself  all  the  way  home. 
Throughout  he  took  Phyllis'  concurrence  for 
granted,  and  his  exuberance  was  unclouded  by  the 
least  suspicion  of  the  truth.  He  had  half  finished 
his  supper  when  with  that  instinct  which  was  one 
of  the  most  unexpected  endowments  of  his  char- 
acter, he  all  at  once  perceived  something  to  be 
amiss.  It  wasn't  Phyllis'  fault;  she  had  given  not 
a  hint  of  dissatisfaction;  nothing  was  further  from 
her  thoughts  than  to  mar  that  night. 

But  when  he  laid  down  his  knife  and  fork,  and 
stared  at  her  across  the  table  she  knew  in  an  instant 
what  was  coming. 

"  My  God,  Phyllis,"  he  exclaimed,  "  it  is  not 
possible  you  —  you  didn't  like  it?  " 

She  would  have  given  worlds  for  the  lie  that 
would  not  come ;  her  eyes  shrank  from  his ;  the  sin- 
cerity and  conviction  of  his  tone  made  deceit 
impossible.  It  was  almost  in  a  whisper  that  she  an- 
swered :  "  Oh,  Cyril,  Cyril,—  I'm  afraid  I  didn't." 

He  pushed  away  his  plate  and  got  up;  he  could 


288  INFATUATION 

not  suffer  such  a  mortification  sitting;  the  flat  it- 
self seemed  too  small  to  hold  his  sudden  shame, 
his  agitation,  the  staggering  shock  of  what  seemed 
to  him  his  wife's  disloyalty. 

"What  was  the  matter  with  it?"  he  demanded 
passionately.  "  What  was  it  you  did  not  like  ?  — 
No,  no,  you  needn't  try  to  wriggle  out  of  it ;  you've 
said  too  much  to  stop  now;  you've  as  good  as  told 
me  it  was  damned  bad,  and  I  want  to  know  why. — 
The  words  don't  matter;  it  isn't  a  question  of 
how  you  put  it,  nor  how  much  I  mind  being 
knocked  by  the  one  person  on  earth  — !  My  God, 
Phyllis,  what  do  you  mean  by  saying  I  was  bad?  " 

She  was  terrified.  No  culprit  in  the  dock  ever 
trembled  more  guiltily,  or  faced  a  brow-beating 
prosecutor  with  so  stricken  a  look.  Her  husband's 
bitter  and  contemptuous  tone  cut  her  like  a  lash. 
But  it  was  too  late  now  to  make  excuses,  to  palliate 
the  offense.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  go  on 
—  to  justify  herself  —  and  the  better  she  could  do 
it  the  more  she  would  wound  him!  And  all  this 
on  a  night  that  surely  ought  to  have  been  their  hap- 
piest. 

"  You  made  the  captain  too  —  too  common," 
she  stammered,  "  He  is  supposed  to  be  a  high- 


INFATUATION  289 

bred,  aristocratic  man  —  stupid,  of  course  —  but  a 
gentleman  through  and  through.     In  real  life — " 

"  Oh,  real  life !  "  he  interrupted  roughly,  "  that's 
where  all  you  ignorant,  criticizing  people  go  wrong. 
He  has  nothing  to  do  with  real  life  —  he's  a  pre- 
posterous stage  figure,  a  convention.  I  have  to  take 
what  I'm  given;  I'm  not  the  dramatist;  I  can't 
write  new  lines  for  him,  can  I  ?  My  business  is  to 
hide  the  strings  that  pull  his  arms  and  legs,  and 
make  him  possible  —  and  by  George,  I  did  it ! " 

"  But  Cyril,  dearest,  listen  —  even  when  you  first 
come  on  you're  not  polite  enough,  not  chivalrous 
enough.  You  almost  burst  out  laughing  at — " 

"  That's  to  give  contrast  to  him  afterwards." 

"  But  you  can  do  that,  and  still  keep  him  a  gen  — 
I  mean  nice,  and  — " 

This  was  all  she  was  allowed  to  say.  Adair  tow- 
ered over  her,  convulsed,  shaking,  his  voice  hardly 
governable  as  he  stormed  and  raged.  It  was  the 
best  thing  he  had  ever  done; 'it  was  perfect;  there 
was  fifteen  years  of  stage  experience  in  that  one 
creation.  It  was  awful  that  it  should  all  go  for 
nothing;  it  shook  his  nerve;  it  shook  his  confi- 
dence in  himself;  he  hardly  knew  how  he  could  go 
on  playing  the  part.  He  wouldn't,  he'd  throw  it 


290  INFATUATION 

up;  he  warned  her  to  be  more  careful  next  time,  or 
as  an  actor  he  would  be  done  for.  It  wasn't  that 
he  was  afraid  of  criticism  —  intelligent  criticism  — 
he  welcomed  intelligent  criticism  —  the  criticism  of 
those  who  knew  the  stage  —  helpful  criticism. 
But  to  club  a  man  in  this  ignorant,  crass  way  was 
simply  to  murder  him.  How  could  he  ever  bear 
to  let  her  see  him  again  in  anything?  He  was 
sensitive;  he  was  cruelly  sensitive;  it  was  because 
he  had  temperament;  and  if  he  couldn't  please  the 
person  he  liked  he  had  no  courage  or  heart  left, 
even  if  he  set  the  whole  house  crazy.  Here  was 
one  of  the  best  things  he  had  ever  done,  killed  for 
ever  —  and  it  was  she  who  had  killed  it!  It  was 
the  penalty  of  loving  her  that  he  could  not  go  on 
without  her  approval;  he  knew  she  was  wrong;  in 
any  one  else  he  would  have  dismissed  it  with  a  shrug, 
and  forgotten  it  the  next  minute ;  yet  with  her  — ! 
Perhaps  this  sounds  more  ignominious  than  it 
was.  To  Phyllis  at  least  there  was  a  great  pathos 
in  the  exasperated  outburst  that  was  very  far  from 
being  due  to  vanity  alone.  The  revelation  of  her 
husband's  weakness,  of  his  utter  dependence  on  her 
good  opinion,  atoned  not  a  little  for  the  violent 
things  he  said.  It  enlarged  her  understanding  of 


INFATUATION  291 

the  childishness  that  lies  so  close  beneath  the  artist- 
nature —  of  its  swift  extremes  of  feeling  —  and 
showed  her,  too,  the  amazing  intensity  that  Adair 
put  even  into  a  small  role,  and  taught  her  afresh 
what  a  life  and  death  matter  the  stage  was  to  him. 
His  frenzy,  therefore,  instead  of  rousing  her  re- 
sentment, and  worse  still  her  scorn  and  anger, 
rather  quickened  within  her  a  tragic  pity.  His 
burning  face,  his  dilating  eyes,  his  quivering  twitch- 
ing mouth  —  all  the  evidences  of  an  uncontrollable 
mortification  —  brought  forth  instead  that  womanly 
feeling,  so  rich  in  generosity  and  indulgence,  that 
would  sacrifice  everything  for  the  one  it  loved. 

To  prove  that  she  was  right  seemed  to  her  of 
much  less  importance  just  then  than  to  smooth 
down  that  wild,  distraught  man-creature  who  be- 
longed to  her.  With  love  in  peril  all  other  consid- 
erations were  swept  away.  No  pride  stood  be- 
tween, no  sense  of  injustice;  love  was  too  precious 
for  such  pettinesses  to  interfere. —  Then  with  what 
piteous  artifices  she  began  to  eat  her  words!  How 
adroitly  did  she  argue  so  that  her  surrender  should 
not  be  too  apparent,  giving  way  by  such  fine  grada- 
tions that  Adair  hardly  suspected  the  imposture. 
How  contritely  she  confessed  herself  in  the  wrong, 


292  INFATUATION 

her  cringing  little  heart  all  submission,  her  whole 
young  body  eager  to  atone  her  fault. —  The  wild, 
distraught  man-creature  was  by  degrees  coaxed 
back  to  tameness  and  sanity ;  the  thunders  subsided ; 
with  kisses  and  caresses  he  was  even  prevailed  upon 
to  resume  his  place  at  table,  where,  lecturing  her 
masterfully  as  he  ate,  though  with  a  steadily  lessen- 
ing severity,  dormice  peace  was  at  length  restored. 
By  the  time  Phyllis  had  brought  him  his  slippers, 
lit  his  cigar,  and  snuggled  herself  against  his  knees, 
like  a  sweet  little  Circassian  who  had  disturbed  her 
Bashaw,  and  had  been  graciously  forgiven  by  that 
dearest  and  best  of  men,  Adair  mellowed  sufficiently 
to  feel  some  slight  self-reproach.  He  apologized 
for  having  got  so  worked  up;  fondled  her  glossy 
hair;  called  her  his  darling  little  stupid  whom  he 
loved  so  well  he  couldn't  endure  her  to  find  fault 
with  him.  Between  whiffs,  mellowing  even  more, 
he  admitted  that  he  might  have  been  slightly  unrea- 
sonable, even  unkind,  but  put  it  all  down  to  his 
disappointment  at  failing  to  please  her.  "  I  worked 
so  hard,"  he  said.  "  I  just  fell  over  myself  to  make 
them  laugh.  I  —  I  had  to  think  of  the  seventy- 
five,  you  know,  and  holding  down  the  job;  and  as 
the  others  liked  it,  I  —  I  thought  you  would.  My 


INFATUATION  293 

sweetheart  girl  must  try  and  make  some  allow- 
ances. I  couldn't  help  feeling  cross  and  nervous 
and  all  worked  up  —  and,  and,  it's  awful  to  fail, 
Phyllis." 

She,  at  this,  the  naughty  little  hypocrite,  would 
have  eaten  more  humble  pie;  would  have  protested 
afresh  that  it  was  only  one  tiny-winy  thing  she  had 
objected  to  —  though  even  on  that  she  wasn't  half 
as  sure  as  she  had  been.  But  Adair  cut  her  short. 
In  his  softened  humor  he  was  prepared  to  concede 
something  to  her  criticism;  there  was  a  speck  of 
truth  in  what  she  had  said,  however  much  it  had 
upset  him ;  he  was  going  to  pull  up  the  part  a  bit ; 
he  was  — 

Phyllis  had  sprung  up,  and  darted  into  the  bed- 
room, with  so  sparkling  a  smile,  and  with  such  an 
air  of  animation  and  mystery  that  Adair  hardly 
knew  what  to  make  of  it  all.  But  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  her  girlish  escapades,  and  lay  back  with 
his  cigar,  listening  to  bureau-drawers  being  hastily 
opened  and  shut,  and  awaiting  developments  with 
amused  anticipation.  She  could  be  such  a  little 
devil  when  the  fancy  seized  her,  and  rejoiced  in 
the  most  shocking  exhibitions  for  his  private  delec- 
tation. He  was  unprepared,  however,  for  her  to 


294  INFATUATION 

bound  out  in  a  suit  of  his  own,  the  sleeves  and 
trousers  rolled  up,  and  her  hair  half-hidden  be- 
neath a  jaunty  cap.  She  had  made  herself  up  for 
Captain  Carleton,  and  the  moment  she  opened  her 
mouth  Adair  recognized  the  fine  parody  of  himself 
in  the  role.  The  words  she  had  pat,  her  reten- 
tive memory  having  caught  and  retained  them  dur- 
ing his  laborious  "  study  " ;  and  while  she  was  less 
sure  of  the  imaginary  milk-maid,  she  paraphrased 
the  latter's  lines  with  sufficient  accuracy  to  keep  her 
cues  straight.  She  knew  she  was  playing  with 
fire ;  her  face  was  a  picture  of  mingled  roguishness 
and  terror,  yet  she  was  impelled  by  a  headlong 
daring  that  was  irresistible. 

She  flung  herself  into  the  scene  with  mad  aban- 
donment, mimicking  his  voice,  his  gestures,  his 
laugh,  the  very  way  he  leaned  against  the  paste- 
board gate  —  a  whirlwind  little  figure,  dancing 
crazily  on  the  egg-shells  of  his  vanity.  It  was  the 
cleverest,  wickedest,  most  unsparing  travesty  of 
his  whole  performance,  carried  through  with  in- 
ordinate zest  and  mischief,  and  heightened  by  a  slim 
young  beauty  that  had  never  seemed  to  him  more 
alluring.  Her  little  feet  had  never  looked  so  small 
vajs  wjith  the  coarse  .trousers  flapping  about  her  an- 


INFATUATION 

kles ;  the  audacious  curves  above  intensified  her  sex ; 
while  the  partly  opened  coat  displayed  the  ribbons 
and  lace  of  her  night-dress  beneath  —  the  whole  a 
vision  of  captivating  girlhood. 

Adair  at  first  made  no  sign  at  all  except  to 
stare  at  her  in  a  sort  of  stupefaction.  His  face 
grew  so  dark  that  she  felt  shivers  running  down 
her  back,  and  for  a  moment  she  wondered  if  she 
had  not  mortally  offended  him.  The  first  smile 
she  wooed  from  him  set  her  pulses  dancing  with  re- 
lief. Yes,  he  was  smiling,  he  was  laughing,  he  was 
clapping  his  hands;  and  then,  oh,  the  joy  of  it, 
he  was  bursting  out  with  great,  deep  "  Ha,  ha's  " 
of  delight!  Thus  encouraged,  she  redoubled  her 
exertions;  she  outdid  herself;  she  was  in  the  second 
scene  now,  and  was  tearing  it  to  pieces  like  a  puppy 
with  a  rag-doll,  panting  with  excitement  and  suc- 
cess, and  rapturous  with  victory.  Adair  jumped 
up,  and  in  a  paroxysm  of  admiration,  passion,  ex- 
ultation and  self-reproach,  ran  and  crushed  her  in 
his  arms.  Phyllis  felt  the  filmy  lace-stuff  rip  asun- 
der, and  his  lips  seeking  her  flesh,  while  all  in- 
coherent he  breathed  out  that  he  loved  her,  loved 
her,  loved  her,  and  that  she  was  right;  yes,  he 
had  been  playing  it  all  wrong;  never  would  he  go 


296  INFATUATION 

against  her  judgment  again,  and  then  and  there 
took  back  every  word  he  had  said!  He  was  just 
a  vain,  silly,  conceited,  swollen-up  jackass,  not  even 
worth  her  finger-tip;  and  he  couldn't  forgive  him- 
self for  the  way  he  had  treated  her;  and  the  only 
thing  he  could  think  of  doing  to  show  how  badly 
he  felt  was  to  plump  down  and  kiss  her  little  slip- 
pers, which  he  forthwith  did  with  a  humility  that 
would  have  been  more  impressive  had  there  been 
a  less  frantic  flurry  of  kicks  and  protests. 

Thus  the  evening  that  had  begun  so  ill  ended  in 
tenderness  and  profound  accord.  The  very  last 
thing  Mr.  Dormouse  murmured  as  he  lay  locked 
in  his  wife's  arms  was  that  she  was  the  cleverest 
little  actress  in  the  world,  and  pretty  enough  to 
eat,  and  a  million  times  too  good  for  him  — 
which  on  the  whole  was  the  truest  thing  Dor- 
mouse had  said  for  a  long  while,  and  showed  that 
his  ideas  were  improving.  Little  though  he  knew 
it  he  was  improving  in  every  way,  and  could  he 
have  set  himself  back  six  months  he  would  have 
been  astounded  at  the  contrast.  Women  make  men 
in  other  senses  than  the  physical,  and  this  robust 
lump  of  egoism,  selfishness,  ignorance  and  conceit 


INFATUATION  297 

was  being  slowly  and  unconsciously  transformed. 
Something  of  Phyllis  was  passing  into  him,  and  in 
the  magic  of  that  soul-infiltration  the  grosser  side  of 
him  had  begun  to  crumble. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

IT  is  disappointing  to  chronicle  that  the  altered 
and  improved  rendering  of  the  English  cap- 
tain passed  almost  unnoticed.  Mr.  Kemmel, 
O'Dowd's  right-hand  man,  indeed  had  objected  to 
the  change;  and  failing  to  bully  Adair  into  submis- 
sion had  carried  the  affair  up  to  the  star.  But  that 
comedian,  with  a  kindness  that  bordered  on  a  sub- 
lime indifference,  refused  to  interfere.  "  Hell,  it 
don't  matter  how  he  plays  it  as  long  as  he  gets  the 
words  over,"  was  his  sage  comment;  and  a  wave 
of  a  large,  fat  hand  dismissed  the  subject  for  ever. 
O'Dowd  had  his  own  private  reasons  for  wishing 
to  stay  on  good  terms  with  Adair,  which  he  was 
too  regal,  if  not  too  cautious,  to  pass  on  at  that 
moment  to  Mr.  Kemmel.  O'Dowd,  being  star, 
manager,  and  half-author  of  the  piece  was  minting 
money  under  all  three  heads,  and  his  concern  for 
the  box-office  was  proportionately  great  —  so  great 

298 


INFATUATION  299 

that  he  could  consider  the  choice  of  an  understudy 
without  irritation,  and  even  accept  a  man  who 
might  "  draw." 

On  first  being  commanded  to  understudy  his  prin- 
cipal, Adair  had  accepted  the  task  much  in  the  spirit 
of  Mary  Ann,  when  she  is  told :  "  Oh,  I  forgot  to 
say  you  must  do  the  washing,  too ! "  It  was  a 
drudgery  and  a  bore  that  he  would  have  been  well 
content  to  avoid,  for  one  look  at  O'Dowd's  red 
face  and  vigorous  frame  convinced  him  of  the  re- 
moteness of  the  contingency  for  which  he  was  to 
fit  himself.  He  set  no  hopes  in  that  direction,  and 
it  came  to  him  as  a  real  surprise,  a  couple  of  weeks 
after  he  was  engaged,  to  be  asked  into  the  office 
and  told  of  a  new  contract  he  was  to  sign. 

"  The  Guv'nor  ain't  satisfied  with  that  fourth 
clause,"  said  Mr.  Kemmel.  "  He  says  it  ain't  plain 
—  hey,  there,  don't  let  Phelps  go,  I  want  him  and 
Klein  for  witnesses." 

"  Where  isn't  it  plain  ?  "  demanded  Adair,  who 
remembered  the  document  as  one  of  unusual  rigor, 
without  even  the  usual  two  weeks'  notice.  "  Do 
you  wish  to  add  penal  servitude  to  my  other  fifty- 
seven  penalties  ?  " 


300  INFATUATION 

Mr.  Kemmel  did  not  deign  to  smile.  He  was  a 
pale,  bald  Jew  of  about  thirty-six,  with  a  peculiarly 
bleak  way  of  addressing  actors. 

"  No,"  he  answered,  "  we  want  to  clear  up  the 
understudy  part  of  it." 

"  Understudy  part  of  it  ?    What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  Well,  if  you  went  on  for  five  or  six  weeks, 
taking  the  Guv'nor's  place  every  night  and  matinee 
—  you  might  make  out  like  it  was  a  new  engage- 
ment —  and  try  to  stick  us." 

Adair  was  too  mystified  to  take  offense. 

"  Stick  you  ?  "  he  repeated. 

"  Yes,  sue  us  afterwards  for  three  or  four  times 
the  salary."  —  Mr.  Kemmel  sighed,  and  looked  up- 
ward, as  though  reflecting  on  man's  inhumanity  to 
man.  "  In  this  business  one  has  to  be  so  careful," 
he  added,  as  impersonally  as  though  he  were  speak- 
ing to  a  stone  pillar,  "  so  careful  —  well,  as  I  was 
saying,  here  we  have  iron-claded  it,  and  you  are  to 
sign  where  it  is  penciled,  and  return  the  old  con- 
tract to-morrow." 

The  typewritten  words  swam  a  little  as  Adair 
gazed  at  them;  he  was  afraid  of  being  tricked;  he 
wanted  to  make  sure  that  the  precious  seventy-five 
a  week  had  not  been  tampered  with.  But  there  it 


INFATUATION  301 

was,  all  right,  along  with  the  new  proviso.  It  was 
difficult  to  believe  that  this  last  amounted  to  any- 
thing, for  O'Dowd's  appearance  precluded  the  least 
idea  of  illness.  The  man  was  as  strong  as  a  bull, 
with  a  voice  that  shook  your  ear-drums,  and  the 
shoulders  of  a  negro  coal-heaver.  He  was  offen- 
sively healthy,  and  so  limited  in  any  interest  but 
the  theater  that  he  moped  visibly  of  a  Sunday. 
One  might  as  well  understudy  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  on  the  chance  of  its  taking  a  night  off. 
Adair  laughed  as  he  signed  the  new  contract,  and 
hardly  thought  of  the  matter  for  a  day  or  two  after- 
wards. 

It  was  Kemmel  who  again  brought  it  home  to 
him. 

"  I'm  keeping  the  orchestra  for  you  to  run  over 
the  Guv'nor's  songs  again  with  them,"  he  said. 
"  You  sing  them  good  enough,  but  the  leader  says 
you  crowd  the  overture,  and  sometimes  get  ahead 
of  him." 

There  are  no  people  in  the  world  so  unmurmur- 
ing as  actors;  they  will  rehearse  till  their  voices 
crack  and  their  legs  drop  off,  and  all  this,  too  often, 
under  volleys  of  insults  and  reproaches.  Adair 
had  played  two  performances  that  day,  and  was 


302  INFATUATION 

worn  out  and  hungry ;  yet  it  never  occurred  to  him 
to  make  any  objection  to  such  an  unexpected  order. 
The  poor,  weary  orchestra  was  there,  as  hungry 
and  worn  out  as  he,  but  as  willing  as  every  one 
connected  with  the  stage  seems  always  to  be;  they 
scraped  and  tootled  and  drummed  and  bassooned 
for  two  mortal  hours,  from  a  quarter  past  eleven 
till  after  one  A.  M.,  while  Adair  sang  Irish  melodies 
to  the  darkened  house.  O'Dowd  himself,  in  a 
stage-box,  was  the  solitary  though  far  from  silent 
spectator.  Cigar  in  mouth,  profane,  morose  and 
savagely  critical,  he  bellowed  furiously  from  his 
dark  crimson  cave. 

"No,  no,  no,  no!  Hell's  bells,  do  that  again! 
At  the  second  verse  there  now!  For  God's  sake, 
Mr.  Glauber,  emphasize  the  key-note,  boom  it  out 
on  that  first  cornet  so  he  can't  miss  it,  and  lam  it 
in  again  on  the  minor.  The  minor!  The  minor, 
damn  it!  And,  oh  Lord,  Adair,  call  that  a  brogue? 
Hell's  bells,  it's  because  you're  in  such  a  hurry  — 
Glauber  will  wait  for  you  —  damn  it,  give  it  again, 
let  it  stick  to  your  teeth  —  like  this :  '  Of  owl  the 
ma-a-a-a-ids  of  swate  Kilda-a-a-a-rrr  — ' ' 

Adair  had  an  unusually  tuneful  voice,  and  the 


INFATUATION  303 

middle  register  of  his  rather  high  baritone  was  full 
of  warmth  and  charm.  These  catchy  melodies  ap- 
pealed to  him,  and  the  sentiment  was  of  a  down- 
right, popular  kind.  One  rollicked  the  humor  and 
quavered  the  pathos,  and  either  put  in  brogue  or 
didn't  as  one  remembered  or  forgot  it.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  —  except  for  the  brogue  —  he  did  the 
songs  more  justice  than  the  great  O'Dowd  himself, 
and  sang  them  more  sweetly  and  appealingly.  He 
had  no  conception  of  it  that  night,  however,  as  he 
was  hectored  and  bullied  without  cessation  until  his 
eyes  smarted,  and  his  bewildered  head  was  whirl- 
ing. He  had  a  whipped  feeling  as  he  went  off,  and 
a  corroding  sense  of  defeat  and  failure.  It  was 
idiotic  to  expect  him  to  sing,  and  now  that  he  had 
been  tested  and  found  wanting  he  hoped  the  silly 
goats  would  leave  him  alone. 

He  turned  as  he  was  putting  on  his  overcoat  in 
the  wings,  and  saw  that  one  of  the  silly  goats  had 
followed  him.  It  was  Mr.  Kemmel,  more  bleared 
and  bleak  than  ever,  and  evidently  with  something 
disagreeable  to  say. 

"  Oh,  Adair,"  he  exclaimed  in  a  low  voice,  "  hold 
on  a  minute,  I  want  to  talk  to  you.  I've  called  a 


304  INFATUATION 

full  rehearsal  for  to-morrow  at  nine  o'clock,  or- 
chestra and  all  —  for  you'll  have  to  go  on  in  the 
Guv'nor's  place  to-morrow  night !  " 

"I  go  on ?  —  If"  Adair  was  thunderstruck. 
"  What  do  you  mean,  Kemmel  ?  " 

"Just  that." 

"  But  he's  as  well  as  I  am." 

"  The  climate  ain't  agreeing  with  him,  hee,  hee !  " 
—  Kemmel's  cackle  was  as  cold  as  the  draft  off 
an  iceberg. 

"The  climate?" 

"  New  York  state.  He's  got  to  get  right  out 
to-night,  and  that  with  us  playing  a  run,  and  with 
eight  weeks  of  our  lease  unexpired.  If  it  weren't 
for  the  lease,  and  my  Lord,  the  forfeit  to  Boaz  and 
Gotlieb,  he'd  jump  us  out  with  him,  run  or  no  run. 
Ain't  it  awful,  Mabel!" 

"But  Kemmel,  what's  the  matter?" 

"  Well,  it's  like  this,  Adair.  He  and  Julia  Gar- 
rett  were  divorced  here  two  years  ago,  and  the 
dime  museum  freaks  who  tried  it  allowed  her  to 
marry  again,  and  forbade  him.  They  do  things 
like  that  in  New  York,  and  if  you  kick  it's  con- 
tempt of  court !  The  next  day  he  married  our  Mrs. 
O— - — ,  Claudia  Kirkwood  at  Chicago.  See? 


INFATUATION  305 

i 

There's  nothing  they  can't  forget  here  in  two  years, 
and  so  we  came  back,  feeling  pretty  safe  —  and 
would  have  been,  too,  if  number  one  hadn't  got 
tired  of  the  man  who  was  keeping  her  in  London, 
and  rushed  over  here  with  her  little  hatchet.  We've 
been  trying  to  buy  it,  but  it  wasn't  for  sale  —  at 
least  not  at  any  figure  we  could  pay  —  so  we  made 
a  bluff  offer  of  eight  thousand,  and  reserved  our 
Pullman!" 

"  Are  you  going  to  try  to  keep  the  run  here  ?  " 

"You  are!" 

"And  if  I  can't  — if  I  don't  draw?" 

"  Then  we'll  close." 

"  I  wonder  you  didn't  get  Anderson  Bailey  or 
Henry  Millard,  or  that  man  who  has  just  left 
Blanche  Mortimer  —  what's  his  name?" 

"  Costs  too  much  —  you're  cheap." 

Then  to  take  the  edge  off  this  remark,  he  added : 

"  Say,  that's  not  a  knock ;  we  wouldn't  take  them, 
anyway;  I'm  not  throwing  any  bouquets,  Adair, 
but  you  are  damned  good  in  it,  really  damned  good 
—  and  are  exactly  what  we  want.  And  don't  you 
feel  sore  about  the  money,  either.  We  are  paying 
you  seventy-five  salary,  and  four  hundred  and 
twenty-five  worth  of  chance  to  make  a  big  hit.  You 


306  INFATUATION 

wish  to  get  on,  don't  you?  Well,  you  may  be  a 
made  man  in  eight  weeks.  We're  taking  a  gamble, 
and  so  must  you.  What  if  you. are  a  holy  frost? 
Don't  go  around  belly-aching  for  money,  but  see 
if  you  can't  win  out.  We  believe  you  can;  we  are 
sure  you  can ;  go  ahead !  " 

Praise,  opportunity,  the  belief  of  others  in  you 
— •  how  softening  they  are !  Kemmel,  the  nig- 
gardly, the  fault-finding,  the  lean,  mean  jackal  of 
the  Irish  lion,  suddenly  took  on  a  new  hue.  Adair 
found  himself  shaking  his  hand.  What  a  good 
chap  Kemmel  was,  after  all!  He  shook  his  hand 
cordially,  effusively,  all  former  bitterness  forgotten 
in  an  intoxication  of  joy.  Kemmel  melted  too,  un- 
der that  irresistible  spell ;  had  a  spasm  of  expansive- 
ness  and  indiscretion;  went  so  far  as  to  say,  in  a 
darkling,  confidential  manner,  that  Adair  had  sung 
"  all  round  "  the  boss. 

"  That's  why  I  went  for  you  like  I  did  and  balled 
you  up  now  and  then,"  he  confided.  "  It  wouldn't 
do  to  have  him  think  that,  you  know.  He's  funny, 
like  all  of  them,  and  while  two-thirds  of  him  is 
box-office,  the  other  third  is  temperament  —  and 
my,  it  don't  do  to  jar  it !  " 

Phyllis  had  been  sent  home  alone  long  before 


INFATUATION  307 

this,  and  Adair  found  her  sound  asleep  in  bed.  A 
considerate  husband  would  have  let  her  lie  undis- 
turbed, and  would  have  kept  his  great  news  till  the 
morning.  But  Adair  had  no  more  compunction  in 
waking  her  up  than  if  she  had  been  a  pet  puppy; 
and  rolled  her  over,  and  tumbled  her  about  almost 
as  roughly,  and  with  the  same  clenched-teeth  zest 
in  her  drowsiness,  beauty  and  helplessness.  And 
she,  woman-like,  loved  it,  roughness  and  all  — 
which  goes  to  show  how  stupid  consideration  is  at 
times,  and  how  misplaced.  Adair  never  gave  it  a 
thought,  and  his  selfishness  was  rewarded  by  two 
bare,  satiny  arms  reaching  for  his  neck,  and  the 
eagerest  little  mouth  in  the  world  begging  kisses 
and  taking  them. 

And  the  news? 

Don't  blame  him  if  it  had  grown  a  little.  It 
was  so  truly-truly  big  that  there  could  be  no  harm 
in  making  it  a  trifle  bigger.  Is  it  not  permissible, 
with  your  adoring  little  wife  nestling  beside  you  in 
her  nightie,  and  holding  you  fast  lest  you  might 
suddenly  be  snatched  away  by  some  envious  and 
ruthless  agency  —  is  it  not  permissible,  I  say,  to 
add  a  stick  and  a  cocked  hat  to  some  ordinary,  very 
plainly-dressed  facts?  The  whole  rehearsal,  thus 


3o8  INFATUATION 

gloriously  reviewed  in  the  retrospect,  was  brought 
up  to  the  key  of  Kemmel's  appreciation.  The  un- 
expired  lease  of  the  theater  was  seen  to  be  a 
subterfuge,  and  no  doubt  O'Dowd  had  gone  away 
to  organize  a  number  two  company  —  the  shrewd 
fellow;  he  and  Kemmel  mighty  well  knew  they 
had  made  a  "  find  " —  they  weren't  in  that  business 
for  nothing  —  and  both  were  up  in  the  air  about  it. 
The  next  thing  would  be  a  two  years'  contract, 
with  a  real  salary  and  percentages!  Cyril  Adair, 
the  Irish  comedian,  ha,  ha!  Well,  why  not?  It 
would  bring  him  back  to  Broadway  in  the  right 
way,  the  big  way!  Bring  him  back  to  stay,  by 
George,  for  with  this  as  a  stepping-stone  they'd 
never  get  him  off  the  grand  old  street  again. 
And  once  solid  — 

With  unloosened  imagination  they  soared  the 
sky,  vying  ecstatically  with  each  other  in  that  ether- 
eal azure  where  everything  is  possible,  two  little 
children  before  the  opening  doors  of  paradise,  and 
hardly  less  simple  and  naive  —  big  hand  on  little, 
voice  outstripping  voice,  girl-heart  and  man-heart 
blended  in  an  idyllic  love.  But  alas,  closer  than 
paradise,  oh,  so  much  closer  —  on  the  next  floor, 
in  fact  —  was  an  honest  motorman  of  the  Metropol- 


INFATUATION 


309 


itan  Street  Railway,  who  lumbered  out  of  bed,  and 
hammered  loudly  on  the  floor  for  silence.  On  East 
Fifty-eighth  Street  this  was  a  hint  not  to  disturb  a 
sleeping  toiler.  Bang,  bang,  bang,  and  the  creak- 
ing springs  and  bedposts  as  the  stalwart  Brother  of 
the  Ox  again  sought  repose.  He  got  it  all  right; 
he  often  had  to  hammer,  but  never  had  to  hammer 
twice ;  Phyllis  had  a  great  deal  of  humorous  tender- 
ness for  her  working-men  neighbors  —  those 
decent,  silent  men  who  used  to  pass  her  so  re- 
spectfully on  the  stairs;  who  played  cheap  phono- 
graphs on  Sunday  nights,  raised  families  and 
canaries,  owned  dogs  and  took  in  boarders,  till  one 
wondered  their  apartments  didn't  bulge  out  and 
burst !  —  So  McCarthy  returned  to  the  Land  of 
Nod,  and  the  dormice,  reduced  to  whispers,  soon 
kissed  each  other  sleepily,  and  took  their  own  road 
thither. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

ONE  wonders  sometimes  why  almost  any- 
body can  not  be  a  successful  Irish  come- 
dian? Given  a  good  figure,  a  pleasing, 
sympathetic  voice,  and  a  face  naturally  inclined  to 
smile  —  and  the  rest  seems  as  easy  as  taking  pen- 
nies from  a  blind  man.  Certainly  Adair  caught  his 
house  as  surely  as  ever  did  O'Dowd,  and  moved 
through  the  piece  amid  the  same  thunders  of  ap- 
plause. Younger,  handsomer,  and  an  incomparably 
better  actor,  and  with  that  charm,  so  baffling  to 
describe,  which  yet  was  ever-present  and  ever- 
compelling,  he  measured  himself  against  his  prede- 
cessor, and  never  for  a  moment  had  the  least  doubt 
of  the  outcome.  It  is  not  often  that  fairy  tale 
came  as  bravely  true;  that  the  dream  of  overnight 
turned  as  quickly  into  the  fact  of  to-day.  Small 
wonder  that  Adair,  standing  there  on  the  stage 
when  all  was  done,  his  ears  still  ringing  with  the 
applause  of  that  departing  audience,  was  too  ex- 

310 


INFATUATION 

alted,  and  much  too  self-sure  to  fret  at  Kemmel's 
misgivings. 

"  Oh,  you  did  fine,"  cried  Kemmel.  "  You  were 
splendid,  splendid !  But  will  they  ever  come  back?  " 
He  jerked  his  head  in  the  direction  of  the  curtain. 
— "  It  was  O'Dowd  that  brought  them  —  not  you ; 
they  already  had  their  tickets;  the  pinch  comes  to- 
morrow, day  after  to-morrow.  Can  you  draw  them 
then,  ah,  that's  the  point?  —  No,  no,  don't  misun- 
derstand me,  Adair.  I'm  all  up  in  the  air  about 
you;  you  justified  all  we  hoped;  more  than  we 
hoped ;  you  don't  need  to  be  told  how  you  hit  them 
to-night.  But  I'm  scared  —  scared  of  your  success 
—  and  I'm  that  nervous  that  I — !"  Again  he 
turned  towards  the  curtain,  and  his  voice  was  al- 
most a  wail.  "  Oh,  my  God,  Adair,  will  they  ever 
come  back  ?  " 

The  astonishing  thing  was  that  they  did  — 
crowded  back,  swarmed  back,  breaking  all  the  rec- 
ords of  the  piece.  Business  rose  by  leaps  and 
bounds  till  they  were  playing  to  capacity;  till  the 
thrilling  words  "  sold  out "  were  posted  almost 
nightly  on  the  box-office  window;  till  a  ravening 
horde  of  speculators  took  possession  of  the  side- 


3i2  INFATUATION 

walk  in  front,  alternately  delighting  Kemmel  with 
their  advertising  value,  and  wringing  his  soul  with 
anguish  at  the  money  he  saw  going  astray.  Not 
that  these  were  his  only  preoccupations;  he  was  too 
loyal  to  his  employer's  interest,  and  too  expert  a 
theatrical  man  to  let  a  success  run  along  without  a 
guiding  hand.  Adair's  name  went  up  in  electric 
letters  ;  pictures  and  paragraphs  were  scattered 
broadcast ;  an  option  was  secured  on  another  theater 
to  continue  the  run,  and,  what  seemed  to  him  the 
best  of  all,  he  had  Adair  securely  tied  up  by  a  new 
contract.  Kemmel,  in  his  own  words,  was  "  on 
to  his  job,"  and  in  his  letters  to  O'Dowd  he  was 
already  urging  a  number  two  company,  and  submit- 
ting estimates  and  names. 

The  new  contract,  of  course,  was  a  marvel  of 
one-sidedness ;  on-to-his-job  Kemmel  naturally 
saw  to  that,  and  paid  a  legal  iron-worker  twenty- 
five  dollars  to  make  it  of  seamless  steel.  But  on 
the  running  out  of  the  existing  contract  at  seven- 
ty-five dollars  a  week,  it  assured  Adair  two  hundred 
and  fifty  as  long  as  it  pleased  O'Dowd  to 
employ  him.  Seamless  steel  could  not  accomplish 
everything,  and  a  substantial  increase  of  salary  had 
to  be  accorded.  Adair  would  have  stood  out  for 


INFATUATION  313 

more;  but  Phyllis,  with  feminine  caution,  prevailed 
on  him  to  make  no  demur.  Booful's  day  would 
come ;  stick  to  her  and  he  would  wear  diamonds  — 
not  to  speak  of  bells  on  his  darling  fingers  and  toes ; 
but  just  now  money  was  secondary  to  cementing 
his  position  till  he  was  stuck  up  so  high  on  Broad- 
way that  they'd  have  to  feed  him  with  a  ladder. — 
Besides,  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  week  was 
an  awful  lot  of  money.  Forty  weeks  at  two  hun- 
dred and  — 

"  Forty  weeks,  you  goose !  "  expostulated  Adair. 
"  I'd  be  the  last  person  to  object  if  it  were  forty 
weeks.  But  down  there,  on  that  smudgy  blue 
place,  they  can  cancel  everything  in  forty  seconds." 

"  People  aren't  cancelled  who  are  playing  to  ca- 
pacity." 

"  I  know,  but  the  utter  damned  meanness  that  — " 

"  Poor  little  Booful  mustn't  worry,  and  if  he'll 
stop  damning  and  rampaging,  I'll  take  him  down 
to  his  Uncle  Macy's,  and  show  him  that  lovely 
fur  coat  I  want  him  to  buy  as  soon  as  we  have 
some  money." 

"  I  suppose  you  are  right,  Phyllis,  but  it  galls 
me  to — " 

"  My  darling,  sweetheart  love,"  she  broke  in  with 


3i4  INFATUATION 

pretty  seriousness,  "  nothing  is  so  important  as  your 
success,  and  once  make  that  secure,  money  follows 
as  a  matter  of  course.  Let  Booful  keep  shinning 
up  the  pole,  even  if  they  do  pick  his  pockets,  and 
never  think  of  anything  but  the  gilt  ball  at  the 
top,  and  —  and  me." 

This  was  good  advice  and  Booful  acted  on  it. 
The  two  hundred  and  fifty,  too,  looked  less  despica- 
ble as  every  day  drew  it  nearer;  and  as  it  became, 
not  an  abstraction  to  be  argued  over  and  theoret- 
ically scorned,  but  a  tidy  little  bundle  of  greenbacks 
that  would  go  far  to  ease  life,  both  on  the  spend- 
ing side  of  it  and  the  saving.  Oh,  yes,  half  of  it 
was  to  be  laid  by  in  the  bank  for  a  rainy  day. 
Meanwhile,  they  lived  up  to  the  last  cent  of  the 
seventy-five,  which  once  so  much,  now  suddenly 
grew  meager  by  contrast,  and  by  the  greater  in- 
roads made  upon  it.  Booful  rolled  home  in  cabs; 
there  were  little  restaurant  suppers  with  a  fizzling 
pint  of  wine;  Phyllis  bought  a  coveted  peignoir, 
made  out  of  pale  blue  fluffy-nothingness,  and  with 
a  hand-embroidered  collar  delicately  touched  with 
gold. —  Well,  why  not?  The  nearing  future  was 
too  bright  not  to  discount  it  a  little  in  the  present. 

We  have  said  that  Kemmel  kept  his  press  agent 


INFATUATION  315 

busy;  and  in  the  same  thoroughgoing  spirit  that 
placarded  every  garbage-can  from  Twenty-sixth 
Street  to  Harlem,  strove  by  a  thousand  means  to 
get  Adair's  name  prominently  into  the  papers.  If 
he  succeeded  beyond  all  expectations  he  ascribed  it 
to  his  own  astuteness,  instead  of  to  the  fact  that 
Adair,  for  the  moment,  was  an  extremely  spectacu- 
lar figure  in  the  theatrical  world.  It  was  one  of 
the  remarkable  things  about  this  man  that  he  im- 
pressed himself  so  indelibly  in  the  recollection  of 
every  one  who  had  ever  known  him.  It  was  too 
often  a  disagreeable  recollection;  he  had  sown 
hatred  with  a  royal  hand;  yet,  in  a  queer,  negative, 
altogether  unprofitable  way  he  had  fascinated  every- 
body. Others  might  make  a  disagreeable  impres- 
sion and  be  forgotten.  But  no  one  ever  forgot 
Adair.  Magnetism,  personality,  genius  —  whatever 
word  one  chose  to  call  it  —  he  had  the  peculiar  fac- 
ulty of  arresting  attention,  of  exciting  interest,  of 
making  people  talk  and  speculate  about  him. 

It  was  indubitably  at  times  a  most  unlucky  gift. 
With  his  reappearance  and  success  the  flood-gates 
of  his  past  were  opened,  and  there  gushed  forth  a 
Niagara  of  malignant  chatter.  His  amours,  his 
fights,  his  disreputable  escapades,  his  divorce  —  all 


316  INFATUATION 

were  revived.  Every  one  seemed  to  have  a  story 
to  his  discredit,  and  to  be  in  haste  to  get  it  into 
print.  Nor  was  his  marriage  to  Phyllis  allowed  to 
escape  the  same  soiling  publicity,  and  the  tale  was 
embellished  with  slanders  and  innuendoes  that 
would  have  goaded  a  much  more  patient  man  to 
fury.  Adair  was  with  difficulty  restrained  from 
knocking  editorial  teeth  down  editorial  throats; 
and  it  showed  Phyllis'  power  over  him,  and  the 
change  generally  in  his  disposition  that  the  police 
courts  were  untroubled  by  his  presence. 

Lies  about  herself  Phyllis  could  bear  with  some 
fortitude,  but  Adair's  earlier  life,  as  thus  revealed 
by  the  sensation-mongers,  cost  her  many  a  bitter 
pang. —  The  woman  who  had  tried  to  shoot  him  at 
the  Cafe  Martin,  and  the  whole  revelation  of  that 
horrid  affair  —  the  Burt-Wauchope  scandal,  where 
rather  than  save  himself  by  compromising  an  un- 
known girl,  he  had  gone  to  prison  for  contempt; 
and  that,  not  quietly  and  nobly,  but  with  a  vain- 
glorious satisfaction  in  his  martyrdom  —  the  dis- 
creditable spree  on  Tim  Bartlett's  yacht  —  how 
horrible,  how  unendurable  it  was  —  this  graveyard 
resurrection  of  bygone  years! 


INFATUATION 


317 


Adair  never  justified  himself  to  her,  never  tried 
to  palliate  or  explain  away  the  incidents  of  his  out- 
rageous past.  That  instinct,  which  in  all  his  rela- 
tions with  her  invariably  guided  him  aright,  served 
him  as  well  now  as  it  had  always  before.  He  was 
more  gentle,  more  tender,  trusting  to  kisses  rather 
than  words.  "  Don't  let  this  hurt  you,"  he  once 
said  to  her,  the  only  time  he  had  ever  ventured  to 
speak  to  her,  "  that  wasn't  me,  Phyllis.  There 
wasn't  any  me  until  you  came.  You  know  that, 
don't  you?  No  me  at  all,  but  just  a  big  brute, 
and  if  he  didn't  have  a  soul  it  was  because  it  was  in 
your  bureau  drawer  along  with  your  stockings  and 
handkerchiefs,  and  I  guess  you  thought  it  was  a 
sachet  bag  or  something,  and  never  looked  at  it 
twice." 

The  most  jealous,  dismayed  and  heart-sick  of 
women  could  not  have  resisted  such  pleading;  not 
if  she  were  in  love,  that  is,  and  her  lover's  voice 
was  as  appealing,  and  his  eyes  as  convincing  and 
sincere. —  In  a  divine  commingling  of  wife-love  and 
mother-love,  so  pure,  so  uplifting  that  it  tran- 
scended all  physical  expression,  save  alone  what  the 
breast  could  give,  she  drew  his  head  to  her  bosom, 


3i8  INFATUATION 

comforting  him,  comforting  herself  in  an  act  em- 
blematic of  all  that  is  most  beautiful  in  humanity. 

The  more  one  studies  the  stage  the  more  one  is 
surprised  by  its  disregard  of  principles  that  govern 
every-day,  ordinary  affairs.  Perhaps  it  is  because 
actors  are  all  children,  who  have  clung  tenaciously 
to  playing  Indian  in  the  hall,  and  shooting  tig»rs 
under  the  parlor  sofa  long  after  the  rest  of  us  have 
grown  up.  It  is  a  good  thing  far  the  world  that 
"  temperament "  is  so  largely  confined  to  the  paste- 
board walls  of  the  theater;  or  we  might  see  our 
grocer  sulking  over  his  butter,  or  railway  presi- 
dents impetuously  ordering  off  trains  because  they 
had  taken  a  sudden  distaste  to  the  landscape  of 

some  state.     Self-interest,  that  sheet  anchor  of  so- 

&• 

ciety,  is  but  a  kedge  to  the  theatrical  ship,  and  many 
plow  the  main  without  even  that.  Caprice  often 
outweighs  all  money-making  considerations;  and 
though  we  are  far  from  decrying  those  who  sacri- 
fice dollars  to  art  (and  there  are  many),  may  one 
not  be  a  little  peevish  with  the  others,  whose  vanity 
and  wilfulness  often  take  such  spiteful  forms? 

It  certainly  cost  Shamus  O'Dowd  all  of  twelve 
thousand  dollars,  if  not  double  or  treble  that  amount 


INFATUATION  319 

to  close  the  run  at  the  Herald  Square  Theater  and 
bring  it  to  a  peremptory  conclusion.  From  his 
Rocky  Mountain  ranch  he  had  watched,  with  a 
grinding  and  increasing  anger,  the  success  of  the 
man  to  whom  he  had  left  his  role.  The  swelling 
royalty  returns  exasperated  him;  the  laudatory  no- 
tices, sent  in  such  profusion  by  Kemmel  (who  was 
innocent  enough  to  think  they  would  please) — were 
as  tongues  of  flame  leaping  up  the  legs  of  a  captive 
at  the  stake  (such  fat  legs  as  they  were,  and  with 
such  an  ample  scorching  surface),  and  all  the  talk 
of  another  theater  and  a  second  company  clogged 
his  eyes  with  blood,  and  seared  his  low,  coarse 
face  with  the  furrows  of  an  intolerable  indigna- 
tion. 

Nightly  for  twenty-five  years  he  had  been  taking 
others'  crimes  on  his  brawny  shoulders  —  murder, 
arson,  embezzlement,  forgery  —  he  grabbed  for 
them  all,  never  so  happy  as  when  misjudged,  with 
only  the  audience  in  the  secret  of  his  sacrifice;  no- 
body on  the  stage  could  do  anything  wrong  with- 
out his  making  a  rush  to  take  the  blame  —  and  the 
oaths  he  kept  with  an  incredible  fidelity ;  the  superb 
impulses  that  started  from  him  as  freely  as  perspira- 
tion; his  goodness,  chivalry,  and  almost  insensate. 


32o  INFATUATION 

honor  — !     Oh,  the  irony  of  reality  as  contrasted 
with  those  affecting  fictions! 

"  Dear  Kemmel,"  he  wrote,  in  his  ugly,  sprawl- 
ing, impatient  hand.  "  Take  the  bloody  show  right 
off,  and  fire  Adair,  and  keep  the  others  on  half- 
salary  till  you  can  fix  me  up  a  route  outside  of  New 
York.  In  God's  name,  what  do  you  think  I'm  made 
of,  that  I'm  to  play  a  number  two  company  all 
around  the  clock  while  he's  starring  my  hit  on 
Broadway?  And  don't  you  put  up  any  back-talk 
about  it,  either,  for  I  mean  every  word  of  it  if  it 
takes  my  last  red  —  though  you  must  see  that  it 
don't.  If  we  have  to  go  forfeit  on  the  theater, 
hell's  bells,  pay  the  bloody  cormorants,  and  do  you 
hear,  Get  Out!  !  !  For  I'm  sick  of  the  whole 
business.  Fix  it  up  with  Mallory  to  send  out 
something  like  this,  even  if  you  have  to  pay  space 
rates  for  it,  and  I  want  it  featured : — *  The  sub- 
stitution of  Mr.  Cyril  Adair  for  Mr.  Shamus 
O'Dowd  in  the  star-role  of  A  Broth  of  a  Boy 
has  resulted  so  disastrously  to  the  management  that 
the  Herald  Square  Theater  will  be  dark  on  Monday 
night,  and  all  outstanding  tickets  refunded  at  the 
box-office.  The  -experiment  was  an  unfortunate 
one  for  all  parties,  for  Mr.  O'Dowd,  previous  to 


INFATUATION  321 

his  departure  from  New  York,  owing  to  his  doc- 
tor's orders,  was  playing  to  enormous  business,  and 
bade  fair  to  remain  all  the  season.  In  Mr. 
O'Dowd's  hands  A  Broth  of  a  Boy  has  been  a 
record  money-maker,  and  friends  of  the  genial  star 
will  be  enthusiastic  to  learn  of  his  early  return  to 
harness.  The  old  adage  of  the  lion's  skin  is  thus 
verified  again,  and  we  are  not  disparaging  Mr. 
Cyril  Adair  when  we  say  he  was  unlucky  to  be 
cast  for  the  Donkey.' 

"  I  hope  this  is  all  clear,  and  that  I  have  not 
overlooked  anything.  Perhaps  when  you  are  about 
it  you  had  better  fire  Grace  rFarquar,  too.  Pretty 
girls  are  cheap,  and  I  should  like  another  more 
come-on,  preferably  a  blonde  this  time.  Received 
your  check  for  $1,182.40.  No  more  for  the  pres- 
ent Cordially  yours,  Shamus  O'Dowd." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE  right  girl's  cheek  against  his  own  is 
usually  worth  more  to  a  man  than  all  the 
philosophy  to  be  found  in  books.  Adair 
was  stunned;  he  was  too  helpless,  too  hurt  even  to 
murmur.  When  one  is  struck  by  a  thunderbolt, 
one  lies  where  one  falls.  He  expected  Phyllis  to 
fall  also,  and  in  a  dull,  heart-broken  way  was  sur- 
prised by  her  intrepidity.  She  picked  up  the  great, 
despairing  creature ;  kissed  him,  petted  him,  crooned 
over  him  like  a  baby,  smiling  through  her  tears,  and 
exerting  all  her  pretty  fanci fulness  to  make  him 
smile,  too.  Men  may  excel  in  marching  up  to  can- 
non and  saving  people  from  burning  buildings,  and 
descending  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea  in  submarines; 
but  in  the  forlorn  hopes  of  life  it  is  most  often  the 
women  who  lead. 

After  a  while  Adair  was  revived ;  on  examination 
it  seemed  that  he  wasn't  seriously  damaged  at  all, 
only  scared  —  oh,  yes  —  just  scared  all  out  of  his 
poor  Booful  wits;  and  a  fairy  potion  called: 

122 


INFATUATION 


323 


"  What  does  anything  matter  as  long  as  we  have 
each  other  ? "  was  extraordinarily  effective  in  pull- 
ing him  together  again.  Then  Phyllis  jumbled  up 
all  the  swear-words  she  had  ever  heard,  and  hurled 
them  indiscriminately  at  Shamus  O'Dowd,  with 
such  piquancy  and  humor,  coming  as  they  did  from 
that  sweet  mouth,  and  with  such  a  delicious  lady- 
intonation  that  Adair  was  convulsed,  and  a  tiny 
bit  shocked  —  which  was  precisely  what  she  had 
schemed  for,  the  daring  little  wretch. 

Thus  began  a  new  era  of  looking  for  an  engage- 
ment ;  and  it  must  be  said  it  was  a  very  sad,  anxious, 
bitter  era,  for  they  were  dreadfully  poor  —  hungry- 
poor —  and  every  time  there  was  a  knock  at  the 
door  it  was  a  dun  who  had  to  be  coaxed  and  per- 
suaded into  going  away.  Adair's  recent  prom- 
inence had  done  little  to  incline  managers  towards 
him,  and  though  they  were  more  civil,  and  he  gen- 
erally got  greater  consideration  at  their  hands,  it 
was  evident  that  their  former  hostility  still  per- 
sisted. But  his  professional  reputation  now  stood 
pretty  high;  and  occasionally  one,  bolder  than  the 
rest,  would  coquette  with  him,  keeping  him  on 
tenter-hooks  while  a  frantic  search  was  made  "  for 
somebody  that  would  do,  as  well,"  This  somebody 


324  INFATUATION 

was  always  found,  and  Adair  would  be  told  politely 
that  "  the  vacancy  had  been  filled." 

Incidentally  he  learned  that  his  parting  from 
O'Dowd  had  been  grossly  misrepresented  by  that 
"  genial  star,"  who  had  spread  it  about  broadcast 
that  Adair  was  as  impossible  as  ever,  and  so  inflated 
and  top-lofty  that  it  had  been  cheaper  to  break  the 
run  of  the  piece  than  to  stand  his  vagaries  any 
longer.  This  was  in  such  accord  with  Adair's 
former  character  that  it  found  ready  credence  up 
and  down  Broadway;  and  the  great  Mr.  Fielman 
himself  enunciated  the  general  sentiment  when  he 
said  to  Rolls  Reece,  the  dramatist :  "  If  that  fel- 
low Adair  only  had  the  manners  and  decency  of  a 
common  hod-carrier,  I'd  give  him  a  five  years'  con- 
tract, and  make  a  fortune  out  of  him ;  but  the  stage 
is  on  too  high  a  level  nowadays  for  men  like  that 
to  get  a  second  chance  to  disgrace  it  —  at  least  from 
me!" 

No  one  appreciates  more  than  an  actor  the  need 
for  being  well-dressed  when  seeking  an  engage- 
ment. His  appearance  is  a  considerable  part  of  his 
capital,  both  on  the  boards  and  off;  he  may  have 
had  little  breakfast,  and  less  lunch,  but  his  clothes 


INFATUATION  325 

must  be  good,  and  his  linen  immaculate,  and  in  a 
"  profession  "  judged  so  largely  by  superficialities, 
it  behooves  him,  poor  dog,  to  affect  at  any  cost  an 
air  of  fashion  that  but  too  often  is  the  most  pathetic 
of  masquerades. 

It  was  now  that  Phyllis  rose  to  the  occasion  with 
an  unexpected  capacity  that  showed  she  was,  indeed, 
her  father's  daughter.  She  got  the  janitress  to 
teach  her  how  to  wash  and  iron  white  shirts;  and 
in  a  short  time  could  glaze  a  bosom  better  than  her 
instructress,  and  almost  as  well  as  a  French  laundry- 
man.  She  learned  how  to  press  Adair's  coats  and 
trousers ;  she  turned  his  ties ;  she  ironed  his  collars ; 
she  cleaned  his  gloves  with  gasolene.  No  man  was 
ever  valeted  with  more  assiduous  care,  or  sent  out 
every  morning  looking  sprucer  or  better-groomed. 
When  she  kissed  him  good-by  for  the  day  it  was 
always  with  a  playful  admonition,  for  Adair  bore 
adversity  none  too  well,  and  though  he  tried  to  hide 
his  despondency  he  was  beginning  to  break  down 
under  the  long  continued  strain. 

"  And  he  knows  he's  a  great,  big,  handsome, 
splendid  Booful?" 

"Oh,  he's  sure  of  it!" 


326  INFATUATION 

"  And  he's  going  to  step  out  like  a  Crown  Prince 
going  down  to  see  his  Emperor- Papa  at  the  club?  " 

"  You  bet  he  is." 

"  And  swing  his  cane  as  though  he  owned  all 
Broadway  —  and  throw  back  his  head  like  a  Greek 
statue,  and  swagger  into  their  horrid  old  offices 
like  a  millionaire?  For  he  is  a  millionaire,  you 
know  —  not  a  money-one,  but  a  Love-Millionaire 
—  for  don't  I  love  him  millions  and  millions  ?  " 

It  took  a  kiss  to  answer  that ;  and  then  the  Love- 
Millionaire,  laughing  a  little  tremulously,  would 
hurry  away,  whistling  with  much  bravado  as  he 
went  down  the  stairs,  two  at  a  time,  as  suited  a 
great,  big,  handsome,  splendid  Booful;  who,  what- 
ever his  demerits  in  the  past,  was  fast  retrieving 
himself  before  the  Great  Judge. —  And  if,  on  his 
departure,  Phyllis  would  lay  her  head  on  her  arm 
and  give  way  to  uncontrollable  tears,  you  would 
be  wrong  to  feel  too  sorry  for  her.  For  the  mis- 
fortune that  draws  a  man  and  woman  together, 
and  extorts  from  each  their  noblest  qualities  is  not 
really  a  misfortune  at  all,  but  a  precious  and  beauti- 
ful thing  that  it  would  become  us  more  to  envy. 

Thus  the  days  passed  in  a  deadening,  cowing, 
unutterably  depressing  search  for  work.  Adair  was. 


INFATUATION  327 

rebuffed,  put  off,  told  to  call  again ;  he  abased  him- 
self to  men  he  despised;  he  forced  his  presence  with 
hungry  persistence  on  dramatists  and  stars  who 
were  putting  on  new  plays,  affecting  a  good  fellow- 
ship that  was  a  transparent,  dismal  lie.  He  tried 
to  buy  them  wine,  cigars  —  inveigle  them  into 
promises,  and  his  lunch  often  went  in  a  tip  to  some 
greedy  understrapper  who  guarded  their  portals. 

It  is  strange  the  mile-wide  demarcation  that 
divides  the  real  stage  —  the  stage  of  Sothern,  John 
Drew,  Faversham,  Maude  Adams,  etc.,  from  that 
other  to  which  Adair  had  so  long  associated  himself. 
This  other  had  no  representative  save  Adair  in  the 
whole  Thespian  Club.  It  was  a  region  apart,  and 
a  region  that  Adair  was  determined  never  to  re- 
turn to.  It  would  have  called  him  back  willingly 
enough,  and  in  his  desperation  he  might  have  re- 
turned to  it  had  it  not  been  for  Phyllis.  It  was 
she  who  kept  his  resolution  alive;  she  was  too  con- 
fident of  his  talent  to  let  him  throw  it  back  into  that 
Dead  Sea;  it  meant  the  abandonment  of  every  seri- 
ous ambition ;  —  artistically  speaking,  suicide,  death. 
—  Booful  belonged  to  the  top,  and  it  was  his  busi- 
ness and  hers  to  get  him  there. 

Brave  words,  but  how  about  fulfilment?    The 


328  INFATUATION 

end  of  the  month  would  find  them  turned  out  of 
doors.  Phyllis  dreaded  to  see  herself  in  the  glass, 
she  was  becoming  so  pale  and  wan;  in  the  unequal 
battle  everything  was  going  except  her  courage; 
sometimes,  alone  in  the  silent  apartment,  even  that 
seemed  to  droop,  and  a  daunting  terror  would  over- 
whelm her  —  less  for  herself  than  for  Adair.  He 
was  drinking  again,  and  justified  himself  with  a 
bitter  vehemence.  "  They  all  say,  '  Have  a 
drink  ' !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  Nobody  ever  says  '  Have 
an  eat ' !  " —  His  harsh,  despairing  humor  recurred 
to  her,  as  well  as  his  sudden  resentment  at  her  pity. 
He  had  made  atonement,  but  the  sting  remained  — 
or  rather  a  foreboding  of  something  somber  and 
evil  that  in  spite  of  herself  she  could  not  shake  off. 

One  day  at  the  club  a  card  was  brought  Adair, 
inscribed  Mr.  John  H.  Campbell;  and  the  boy  told 
him  the  gentleman  was  waiting  to  see  him  in  the 
visitors*  room.  Adair  knew  no  such  person,  but 
he  went  out  to  greet  him  with  mingled  curiosity 
and  hope,  for  here  perhaps  was  the  long-sought 
engagement.  An  imposing,  distinguished  looking, 
very  well-dressed  man  of  fifty  rose  from  the  sofa, 
and  asked  him,  with  much  suavity,  whether  he  had 


INFATUATION  329 

the  pleasure  of  addressing  Mr.  Cyril  Adair.  This 
question  being  quickly  and  politely  settled,  the  im- 
posing gentleman  begged  for  a  few  words  of  con- 
versation; and  indicating  a  place  for  Adair  beside 
him,  he  reseated  himself  with  a  bland,  kind  air 
which  yet  was  not  without  an  underlying  serious- 
ness, not  to  say  solemnity. 

"  I  have  come  on  a  very  confidential  matter,"  he 
said,  fixing  Adair  with  his  shrewd,  keen,  heavy- 
lidded  eyes.  "  A  matter,  Mr.  Adair,  so  delicate 
that  it  is  not  easy  to  convey  it  except  in  a  round- 
about form.  May  I  explain  I  have  sought  you 
out  at  the  request  of  —  Mr.  Ladd  ?  " 

There  was  a  pause;  the  shrewd,  heavy-lidded 
eyes  slowly  inventoried  Adair  and  read  beneath 
the  tarnished  air  of  fashion.  Failure,  need,  hun- 
ger sap  a  man,  and  can  not  be  hid,  least  of  all  from 
a  professional  observer.  John  Hampden  Campbell 
was  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  New  York  bar  and 
was  what  they  call  a  "  court  room  lawyer  "  of  high 
rank;  which  means  that  others  hand  up  the  guns, 
while  he  shoots  them  off.  His  knowledge  of  hu- 
man nature  was  profound,  and  being  profound  was 
neither  unsympathetic  nor  unkind.  But  he  could 
shoot  straight,  nevertheless,  and  it  was  hardly  a 


33o  INFATUATION 

satisfaction  to  the  victim  to  hear  that  murmur  of 
"  poor  devil !  "  as  the  eminent  counsel  laid  aside 
the  smoking  weapon. 

"  My  father-in-law !  "  exclaimed  Adair  in  amaze- 
ment. 

"  He  would  be  happier  if  he  could  cease  to  bear 
that  name,"  said  Mr.  Campbell. 

"  He  can  hardly  very  well  help  himself,"  re- 
torted Ada^ir  bluntly. 

"  No,  but  you  could,"  put  in  the  lawyer,  with  a 
vagueness  that  was  intentional.  "  By  this  time  you 
must  realize  that  it  is  a  union  that  is  scarcely  to 
your  own  best  interests  nor  the  young  lady's." 

"  Haven't  noticed  it,"  said  Adair,  staring  at  him 
queerly. 

"  Mr.  Ladd  would  be  prepared  to  make  very 
heavy  sacrifices  to  put  back  things  as  they  were 
before." 

"  What  sort  of  sacrifices  ?  "  —  Adair's  tone  was 
not  unfriendly;  it  was  rather  questioning  and  per- 
plexed. 

"  We  would  rather  leave  it  to  you  to  suggest 
them,  though  we  are  counting  more  on  your  con- 
cern for  her  welfare.  Frankly,  Mr.  Adair,  without 
meaning  the  least  disrespect,  and  with  a  thorough 


INFATUATION  331 

knowledge  of  your  honorable  and  straightforward 
conduct  —  do  you  consider  you're  acting  rightly  in 
holding  this  young  lady  to  what  most  people  would 
call  a  very  bad  bargain  ? " 

"  Being  married  to  a  starving  actor?  " 

"  Oh,  that  is  putting  it  too  —  too  — " 

"Of  course,  she  has  thrown  herself  away  —  I 
know  that." 

There  was  a  gleam  in  the  heavy-lidded  eyes. 

"  It  could  all  be  rectified,"  said  Mr.  Campbell 
soothingly.  "  Very  easily,  and  very  quickly  recti- 
fied. It  is  just  a  question,  it  seems  to  me,  of  our 
getting  together,  and  talking  it  over  reasonably. 
In  fact,  some  of  the  details  might  be  omitted  en- 
tirely. Mr.  Ladd  is  a  man  of  very  large  means, 
and  is  the  soul  of  honor.  He  would  see  to  it  that 
your  future  was  made  easy." 

"  How  easy  ?  "  asked  Adair. 

"  I  mean,"  returned  Mr.  Campbell,  "  that  he 
would  substantially  recognize  your  honest  desire  to 
be  guided  by  his  wishes  —  wishes  that  you  admit 
are  just,  and  so  much  to  the  young  lady's  advantage 
that  you  are  willing  to  withdraw  entirely." 

"Those  are  all  words,"  exclaimed  Adair;  "let's 
get  to  figures." 


332  INFATUATION 

Mr.  Campbell  looked  pained.  After  having  con- 
fined the  interview  so  skilfully  within  the  limits 
of  irreproachable  good  taste,  this  brutality  outraged 
his  ear.  He  had  not  been  unprepossessed  by  Adair, 
and  felt  sorry  for  him. —  But  here  was  the  cloven 
hoof. —  The  fellow  was  just  a  low,  mercenary  ad- 
venturer after  all. 

"  The  figures  are  ten  thousand  dollars,"  he  an- 
swered coldly. 

"Why,  I  don't  call  that"  anything !  " 

"  Cash,"  added  Campbell,  with  a  pursing  of  his 
lips. 

"  Of  course,  it's  cash,"  cried  Adair,  "  it's  going 
to  be  that,  whatever  it  is.  Only  it  isn't  enough. 
She's  worth  more  than  ten  thousand  dollars." 

Campbell  saw  that  his  personal  bias  had  made 
him  err.  Adair's  vibrating  tone  had  caught  the 
note  of  his  own;  suavity  and  good  humor  were  all- 
important,  and  he  scurried  back  to  them,  like  an 
incautious  general  flying  for  the  batteries  he  has 
left  behind.  When  he  spoke  again  it  was  in  his 
best  lullaby  manner. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  he  said,  "  the  real  point  is 
that  you  concede  the  principle.  That  is  so,  is  it 
not?" 


INFATUATION  333 

"Hell,  yes,"  returned  Adair.  "I'd  concede  a 
lot  for  fifty  thousand  dollars." 

"  But  that  is  a  very,  very  large  sum  of  money." 

Adair,  with  one  hand  in  his  trousers  pocket,  was 
restlessly  turning  over  the  two  nickels  that  were 
there  —  all  he  had. 

"  I  don't  think  so,"  he  said.  "  Anyway,  she's 
worth  that,  and  more." 

"  I  was  hardly  authorized  to  commit  Mr.  Ladd 
to  such  an  amount,"  objected  Mr.  Campbell, 
"  though  I  will  not  say  right  off  that  I  might  not 
entertain  it.  But  you  understand,  Mr.  Adair,  that 
it  implies  you  will  not  resist  an  action  for  divorce, 
and  —  Well,  you  know  we'd  like  to  have  the  mat- 
ter absolutely  settled  and  done  with." 

"For  fifty  thousand  dollars?" 

The  heavy-lidded  eyes  were  obscured  by  a  mo- 
mentary glaze. 

"  We  will  meet  you,"  said  Mr.  Campbell. 

Adair  rubbed  the  nickels  together,  and  asked, 
with  a  slight  catch  of  his  breath,  if  he  could  have 
something  on  account. 

"  Certainly,"  assented  the  lawyer,  producing  his 
pocket-book.  He  removed  a  sheaf  of  bills,  and 
Adair  perceived  that  they  were  in  denominations 


334  INFATUATION 

pf  a  thousand  dollars  each.  He  had  never  seen  a 
thousand-dollar  bill  before  in  his  whole  life,  and 
here  was  a  thick  packet  of  twenty  or  more.  No 
wonder  that  he  was  overawed.  Campbell  noticed 
his  fascinated  stare,  and  dilly-dallying  with  the 
notes,  spread  them  out  with  an  elaborate  careless- 
ness. To  Adair,  it  was  all  a  blur  of  $1,000,  $1,000, 
$1,000,  $1,000,  a  green  mist  of  money,  a  crisp, 
crinkling,  dizzying  affluence. — Campbell  was  saying 
something  to  him.  There  was  a  paper  to  be  signed. 
It  was  a  temporary  memorandum  to  be  replaced 
later  by  a  more  formal  document.  Buzz,  buzz,  buzz ! 
The  paper  was  handed  to  him.  Buzz,  buzz,  buzz, 
and  the  room  going  round  and  round.  He  was 
standing  on  his  feet,  shaking  with  a  pent-up  pas- 
sion that  he  had  been  so  long  holding  back.  The 
actor  in  him  had  been  waiting  for  that,  but  the 
actor  was  lost  in  the  man. 

"You're  a  miserable  hound!'*  he  cried,  hoarse 
and  trembling.  "And  the  man  who  sent  you  is 
a  hound,  and  here  is  your  damned  paper,  and 
may  it  choke  you  both!  My  wife  isn't  for  sale, 
do  you  hear  that!  My  wife  isn't  for  sale,  whether 
it's  for  fifty  thousand  or  fifty  million!  Is  that 
plain?  Do  you  concede  the  principle,  or  shall  I 


INFATUATION  335 

boot  it  into  you?  I  thought  I'd  lead  you  on;  I 
thought  I'd  just  see  how  far  you'd  go — you  with 
your  sable  overcoat,  and  fat  pocket-book,  and  your 
stinking  respectability!  Get  out  of  here,  you 
cur,  and  report  to  your  master  just  what  I  have 
said  to  you.  If  you're  buying  women  go  somewhere 
else!" 

It  was  needless  to  say  that  John  Hampden  Camp- 
bell did  not  need  to  be  pressed.  Shadrach,  Me- 
shach  and  Abednego  in  the  fiery  furnace  could  have 
scarcely  been  in  a  bigger  hurry.  Cramming  the 
notes  and  papers  in  his  pockets,  he  sped  from  the 
visitors'  room,  like  a  large,  imposing  projectile  which 
had  been  fired  from  some  monster  cannon.  A  sec- 
ond later  his  flying  coat-tails  were  deposited  in  his 
cab,  and  he  was  speeding  away,  considerably  shaken 
in  spirit  and  body,  for  the  mountain  quiet  of  his 
twenty-eight  story  office. 

Lying  on  Phyllis'  table,  all  ready  for  mailing, 
was  a  long  letter  to  her  father.  Pride  had  crumbled 
and  she  had  determined  to  seek  his  help.  She 
had  begun  it  with  constraint,  attempting,  none  too 
effectually,  to  conceal  her  sense  of  injury  and  in- 
justice; but  as  page  followed  page  the  old  tender- 


336  INFATUATION 

ness  returned  with  an  irresistible  force.  That  gray, 
handsome  head  was  before  her,  that  mellow  voice 
was  in  her  ears,  and  the  wretchedness  and  folly 
of  alienation  came  home  to  her  with  a  new  and 
piercing  significance.  The  request  for  money;  the 
cold,  exact  exposition  of  her  need  —  was  passed  and 
forgotten  in  the  impetuous  rush  of  her  pen.  She 
loved  her  husband,  she  loved  her  father,  and  this 
estrangement  was  unbearable.  Like  many  women 
under  the  stress  of  a  deep  emotion  she  wrote  with 
a  singular  eloquence.  She  wept  as  she  described 
Cyril  —  his  unceasing  goodness,  his  loyalty,  his 
fortitude,  his  good  humor  and  devotion.  He  was 
everything  a  woman  loved  best  in  a  man;  and  in- 
stead of  her  marriage  having  been  a  mistake,  a 
failure,  it  was  more  than  she  thought  life  could 
ever  give  her.  Would  not  her  father  forget  all 
that  had  passed,  as  she,  too,  would  forget?  Their 
love  was  too  deep,  too  dear,  to  make  reconciliation 
impossible.  She  would  climb  into  his  lap  again, 
and  put  her  arms  about  him  —  his  sad,  worn,  deso- 
late little  girl  —  and  they  would  whisper  to  each 
other  what  fools  they  had  been,  and  kiss  away  the 
last  shadow  of  misunderstanding. 

So  it  ran,  page  after  page,  in  her  fine,  delicate 


INFATUATION  337 

hand,  an  appeal  that  no  father  could  have  resisted. 
A  beautiful  letter,  touched  with  the  quality  of  tears ; 
full  of  womanly  longing;  heart  crying  to  heart, 
across  an  aching  void.  Alas,  that  it  never  went. 
It  was  torn  to  pieces,  and  thrown  passionately  on 
the  floor.  Campbell  had  intervened,  and  the  news 
of  his  offer  was  thus  received  in  the  little  flat  on 
East  Fifty-eighth  Street.  "  That's  the  end  of  it," 
cried  Phyllis,  regarding  the  scraps  of  paper. 
"  That's  the  end  of  everything  between  Papa  and 
me!" 


CHAPTER  XXV 

IT  is  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  looking-  for  a 
theatrical  engagement  that  hope  is  never  quite 
extinguished.  There  is  always  some  one  who 
wants  you  to  call  next  week;  there  is  always  a 
company  just  short  of  a  part  they  are  considering 
you  for ;  there  is  always  some  friendly  member 
of  the  Thespians  who  has  "  mentioned  your  name," 
and  gives  you  a  scribbled  address  or  a  telephone 
number.  This  is  stated  to  explain  the  fact  why 
Adair,  instead  of  surrendering  to  circumstances, 
as  any  other  man  would  have  done  in  any  other 
walk  of  life,  still  snatched  at  straw  after  straw  with 
egregious  determination.  His  circumstances  were 
becoming  absolutely  desperate.  Suspension  from 
the  club  was  staring  him  in  the  face;  in  eight  clays 
his  sticks  of  furniture  and  his  trunks  would  be 
dumped  out  on  the  street;  it  was  only  by  the  most 
rigid  parsimony  that  body  and  soul  could  be  kept 

338 


INFATUATION  339 

together.  Phyllis  said  the  dormice  were  floating 
on  a  shingle,  and  with  tearful  laughter  would  expa- 
tiate on  the  pitiful,  half-drowned  things,  so  scared 
and  hungry  on  a  bobbing  sea.  What  was  to  hap- 
pen when  they  slid  off?  —  Oh,  but  Booful  wasn't 
to  mind.  She'd  hold  his  poor,  pretty,  dormouse 
head  up,  and  swim  him  off  to  a  lovely  island  where 
there  were  peanuts  on  peanuts,  and  an  alabaster 
mousery  with  all  modern  improvements. 

That  lovely  island  seemed  a  terribly  long  way 
off.  As  the  emblem  of  an  engagement  it  lay  so  far 
over  the  horizon  that  Adair  began  to  doubt  its  very 
existence.  His  eyes  grew  lack-luster;  he  lost  his 
confident  bearing;  poverty  and  failure  stamped  him, 
as  they  stamp  every  man  with  an  unmistakable 
mark.  We  instinctively  move  away  from  the  un- 
successful. We  see  that  mark,  and  widen  our  dis- 
tance. Success  likes  success.  It  isn't  decent  to 
be  very,  very  poor.  Fingers  tighten  on  pocket- 
books,  and  respectable,  prosperous  legs  quicken  their 
steps. —  Adair  was  sinking,  though  the  dismal 
masquerade  still  went  on  —  the  immaculate  cuffs, 
the  once  smart  tie,  the  pressed  clothes,  shiny  with 
constant  ironing.  There  is  many  such  a  figure  on 


340  INFATUATION 

Broadway  —  and  in  some  mean  room  there  is  usu- 
ally a  woman  who  believes  in  him,  stinting  herself 
and  starving  for  his  sake. 

One  dark,  wintry  Sunday  afternoon  in  early 
spring,  as  Phyllis  was  sitting  near  the  frosted 
window,  sewing  and  thinking  and  dreaming  by 
the  scanty  light,  she  was  roused  by  the  tramp  of 
many  footsteps  on  the  stair  outside,  and  a  confused 
bumping,  scuffling  sound,  accompanied  by  a  hoarse 
murmur  of  voices.  With  a  horrible  premonition 
she  ran  to  the  door  and  opened  it,  giving  a  cry  as 
she  .recognized  Adair  being  supported  in  by  two 
companions.  His  face  was  swollen  and  discolored; 
one  eye  was  closed  in  a  rim  of  crimson;  his  mouth 
was  dribbling  blood;  sawdust  and  filth  befouled 
his  clothes,  and  a  stench  of  vile  whisky  exhaled 
from  him  like  a  nauseating  steam.  He  was  helped 
over  to  a  sofa,  and  allowed  to  collapse,  while  the 
men  hurried  away  as  though  ashamed  of  their  task, 
and  thankful  to  have  done  with  it. 

It  was  the  first  time  he  had  ever  appeared  re- 
pugnant to  Phyllis;  he  was  drunk,  and  she  knew 
it,  and  the  fumes  of  the  disgusting  stuff  stifled  her 
with  loathing.  But  she  unloosened  his  collar,  laid 
a  couple  of  pillows  under  his  head,  unlaced  his 


INFATUATION  341 

shoes ;  and  bringing  a  basin,  rinsed  the  oozing  blood 
from  his  lip.  With  pity,  yes,  but  with  the  raging, 
furious  pity  that  goes  with  lost  illusions,  and  the 
falling  of  one's  little  world;  a  pity  less  for  him 
than  for  herself  that  this  should  be  the  end  of  a 
love  that  to  her  had  been  the  very  breath  of  life. 

He  regarded  her  stupidly  with  his  one  open  eye, 
moaning  faintly,  and  drawing  himself  laboriously 
near  the  basin,  spat  into  it.  Then  he  put  out  his 
hand,  and  tried  to  touch  her,  but  she  shrank  from 
him. 

"  Phyllis,"  lie  said,  in  a  raucous  whisper,  "  Phyl- 
lis '';  and  then,  as  though  overcome  by  the  exertion, 
closed  that  single  bleary  eye,  and  dozed  off.  But  it 
was  not  for  very  long.  He  awakened  again. 
"  They  loaded  me  up  with  that  cursed  whisky," 
he  whispered.  "  I  was  all  in,  and  needed  it.  God, 
if  they  didn't  pour  a  bottle  of  it  down  my  throat !  " 
—  For  a  while  he  rambled  on  brokenly,  spluttering 
with  laughter  as  he  held  up  his  clenched  fist  as 
though  he  found  a  strange,  childish  entertainment 
in  the  action. —  Little  by  little  he  pulled  himself 
together.  He  was  a  powerful  man,  sound  to  the 
core,  and  though  he  was  badly  spent,  health  and 
nature  were  rallying  to  his  side. 


342  INFATUATION 

"  Come  here,"  he  said,  in  the  same  husky  whisper, 
but  with  a  noticeable  increase  of  vigor  and  self- 
command.  "  Come  here,  I  wanter  tellyerboutit.0 

Phyllis  crouched  by  his  side,  so  dejected  and 
heartsick  that  it  was  well  for  him  she  hid  her  face. 

"  I  was  with  Morty  Stokes  and  a  whole  lot  of 
them,"  he  went  on,  his  words  running  together 
tipsily.  "  Tagging  on,  too,  you  know  —  royal, 
open-handed  fellow,  Morty,  good  fren'  of  mine, 
always  something  to  eat  —  gives  bell-boy  tip  that 
would  keep  us  for  a  week.  And  it  was  down  at 
the  Qucensbury  Club,  pay  ten  dollars,  and,  member 
—  one-day  member,  you  know  —  though  the  fight 
we  went  to  see  was  tipped  off  —  wasn't  any,  you 
know  —  but  we  stayed  on,  Morty  opening  cham- 
pagne, and  Kid  Kelly  was  there  who  beat  Cyclone 
Crandall  last  month;  and  somehow  Morty  and  the 
Kid  got  into  a  row  about  Tammany  corruption,  and 
both  so  blind  that  neither  of  them  could  have  spelled 
Tammany  for  a  million,  and  everybody  had  to  pull 
them  apart.  Then  Morty,  just  blazing  said :  '  I 
can't  lick  you,  but  here's  a  fellow  that  can,'  and  he 
pointed  at  me,  and  says,  '  Cyril,  I'll  give  you  five 
hundred  dollars  to  wipe  this  dirty  loafer  off  the 
map ! '  AncJ  I  took  it  as  a  joke,  and  said  yes  I 


INFATUATION  343 

would,  and  before  I  knew  it  they  were  appointing  a 
referee,  and  Kid  Kelly  was  stripping  down  to  the 
skin." 

Adair  stopped  and  laughed  —  a  groaning  kind 
of  laugh,  as  mirthless  as  the  wind  that  rattled  the 
window-panes.  "  He  had  only  been  out  of  train- 
ing ten  days,  and  as  for  my  standing  up  against  him 
he  might  have  been  Battling  Nelson.  But  it  sud- 
denly came  into  my  head,  why  here's  a  chance  to 
make  something —  not  Morty's  five  hundred  dol- 
lars for  licking  him  —  I'd  only  drunk  half  a  glass 
of  wine,  and  knew  better  —  but  a  bit  at  the  other 
end  of  it;  and  so  I  said,  yes,  four  hundred  for  the 
winner,  and  a  hundred  for  the  man  out,  and  all  as 
insultingly  as  I  could  make  it,  as  though  that  hun- 
dred was  for  the  Kid  instead  of  me.  And  finally, 
when  it  was  all  settled,  it  all  wasn't  —  Morty  stand- 
ing out  for  two  ounce  gloves,  and  the  others  for 
sixes,  he  saying  he  wanted  to  mark  the  dirty  mutt 
with  something  to  stay;  and  that  it  was  to  be  two 
ounces  or  nothing,  though  what  was  to  happen  to 
me  in  the  mix-up  wasn't  mentioned,  the  fact  being 
he  didn't  care  as  long  as  he  could  see  the  Kid 
pounded;  and  it  was  two  shakes  the  Kid  didn't 
pound  him,  it  all  worked  up  to  such  a  hullabaloo, 


344  INFATUATION 

with  some  of  them  holding  him,  and  others  the  Kid, 
and  all  of  them  yelling  at  once  till  at  last  they  shoved 
us  into  the  ring,  with  Tom  Hallahan  for  referee, 
and  Billy  Sands  holding  the  stakes  and  keeping 
time,  and  then  we  shook  hands  and  squared  off. 

"  The  Kid  wasn't  so  soused  but  what  he  had  an 
inkling  of  the  truth,  and  at  the  first  go-off  he  meant 
to  let  me  down  easy,  like  the  good-hearted  Irish 
boy  he  was,  and  I  could  see  it  in  his  eye —  (half 
of  fighting  is  in  the  eyes,  Phyllis)  —  and  it  was  just 
a  pat  here,  and  a  wallop  there,  and  a  lot  of  quick- 
stepping  and  stage-play,  all  feints  and  parries  and 
pretending.  But  I  wasn't  for  selling  the  fight, 
thinking  Morty  might  sour  on  it,  and  call  the  whole 
thing  off  —  so  I  walked  right  into  the  Kid,  hammer 
and  tongs;  and  by  the  time  I  had  barked  my 
knuckles  on  his  teeth,  and  landed  him  a  lefter  on 
the  jaw  for  all  I  was  worth,  he  was  as  savage  as 
hell,  and  ready  to  kill  me;  and  by  George,  it  was 
only  bull-headed  luck  that  he  didn't  —  that,  and 
the  wine  he  had  drunk,  and  I  stood  up  to  him  for 
five  rounds;  and  first  it  was  for  the  hundred  dol- 
lars, and  then  for  my  very  life.  I  managed  to  get 
on  my  legs  before  I  was  counted  out  on  the  fifth, 
though  the  floor  was  heaving  like  a  ship  at  sea, 


INFATUATION 


345 


and  I  saw  about  eight  of  him,  shooting  out  sixteen 
arms,  and  eighty-four  fists;  and  down  I  went  for 
keeps. —  But  I  got  it !  " 

He  opened  his  hand,  and  showed  two  fifty  dollar 
bills. 

"They  won't  put  us  out  on  the  street  for  yet 
a  while,"  he  said  gloatingly.  "We're  a  hundred 
dollars  ahead,  not  to  speak  of  about  nine  quarts  of 
whisky!  Take  it,  sweetheart,  and,  and — " 

Her  arms  were  about  him,  and  she  was  sobbing, 
her  lips  seeking  his,  unmindful  of  the  blood,  the 
swollen,  discolored  flesh,  the  stale  reek  of  whisky, 
every  fiber  in  her  agonizing  with  tenderness  and 
remorse.  Those  things  that  but  a  minute  before 
had  filled  her  with  an  unutterable  revulsion,  that 
had  shocked  and  dismayed  her  beyond  expression 
were  of  a  sudden  transformed  into  the  evidences 
of  a  tragic  devotion.  It  was  for  her  that  he  came 
to  be  lying  there,  disheveled,  bleeding  and  dirty; 
covered  with  livid  bruises ;  smashed,  disfigured,  and 
crudest  of  all  —  misjudged.  No  wonder  that  the 
scorching  tears  fell ;  that  the  girlish  arms  could  not 
hold  him  tight  enough ;  that  the  little  head  snuggled 
down  so  pitifully,  so  guiltily,  to  atone  for  the  cruel 
wrong. 


346  INFATUATION 

"  I  guess  the  dormice  are  still  on  their  shingle," 
said  Adair,  "  though  a  lot  of  skin  and  fur  has  been 
rubbed  off  one  of  them.  Make  him  a  cup  of  tea, 
dearest  —  his  little  nose  is  hot,  and  I'm  sure  it 
would  do  him  good ! " 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

IT  was  a  week  before  Adair  ventured  to  go  out 
except  at  night,  and  it  was  longer  still  before 
he  outgrew  the  stiffness  following  the  lost 
battle.  He  congratulated  himself  on  having  come 
so  well  out  of  it,  for  an  ordinary  man,  however 
good  an  amateur  boxer,  runs  a  serious  chance  of 
harm  in  a  fight  with  a  champion  pugilist.  The  doc- 
tor passed  his  ribs,  passed  his  jaw,  deliberated  over 
his  collarbone,  and  finally  reduced  the  damages  to 
a  pair  of  broken  knuckle-bones  and  a  badly-sprained 
wrist.  Privately  he  warned  Phyllis  that  her  hus- 
band had  had  a  narrow  escape,  and  told  her  to 
keep  him  out  of  mischief  for  the  future.  "  He's 
the  worst-mauled  man  I  have  examined  for  a  long 
while,"  he  said,  "  and  that  blow  over  the  heart 
might  have  killed  him.  Next  time  let  him  agree 
with  his  adversary  quickly  according  to  the  Gospel 
—  or  use  a  club,  and  use  it  first." 

But  the  knuckles  and  the  wrist  were  not  all  the 
347 


348  INFATUATION 

damage.  With  lessened  strength  there  was  les- 
sened will,  lessened  courage;  and  acquiescence  in 
defeat  succeeded  the  long  spun-out  endeavor  to  turn 
the  tide  of  fortune.  Soon  it  was  tacitly  understood 
between  them  that  they  could  strive  no  longer;  and 
when  Adair,  with  something  of  a  catch  in  his  voice, 
said  he  would  go  round  and  see  Heney,  Phyllis 
made  no  demur.  Heney  represented  that  other 
stage  of  nonentities  and  fourth-raters;  that  mael- 
strom of  hopelessness,  cheapness  and  shoddy;  that 
vast  theatrical  system  which  cadges  for  the  public's 
small  change,  and  seeks  to  please  the  factory-girl 
and  the  artisan.  To  go  back  to  it  was  to  abandon 
everything  —  ambition,  reputation,  future. 

Yet  it  was  pleasant  to  be  warmly  received. 
Heney  was  overjoyed,  gave  him  a  good  cigar, 
patted  him  on  the  knee,  and  said  he  was  just  the 
chap  he  had  been  looking  for  to  take  out  The 
Danitcs.  He  had  been  working  over  the  piece 
himself  to  introduce  Portolini's  trained  dogs,  and 
incidentally  to  "  jack  it  up."  Heney  was  common 
and  underbred  and  talked  with  a  toothpick  in  his 
mouth  —  but  he  was  a  man  not  without  a  certain 
feeling.  He  made  no  allusions  that  might  embar- 
rass Adair,  and  ignored  recent  events.  His  con- 


INFATUATION  349 

sideration  was  increased  perhaps  by  the  opportunity 
thus  given  him  of  getting  Adair  for  The  Danites. 
He  had  been  hoping  to  revivify  it  with  the  trained 
dogs,  but  here  was  a  man  who  could  command  suc- 
cess, for  Adair  was  a  money-maker  and  the  surest 
"  draw  "  in  the  business.  Terms  were  quickly  set- 
tled. A  hundred  a  week,  and  a  forty  weeks'  con- 
tract, with  the  usual  notice  on  both  sides.  It  could 
be  typed  and  signed  later  on;  meanwhile  here  was 
a  spare  carbon  of  the  play  to  look  over;  and  re- 
hearsals would  begin  as  soon  as  the  dogs  had  fin- 
ished their  vaudeville  dates  at  One  Hundred 
Twenty-fifth  Street  and  Brooklyn. 

Adair  left  the  office  feeling  as  though  he  had 
sold  himself  to  the  devil.  An  old  nickname  of  his 
recurred  to  him  as  he  walked  slowly  homeward: 
"  The  Four-bit  Mansfield."  He  kept  repeating  it 
on  the  way,  "  The  Four-bit  Mansfield,  The  Four-bit 
Mansfield !  "  Yes,  that  was  what  he  was ;  that  was 
as  near  as  he  would  ever  get  to  the  real  thing;  be- 
fore he  hadn't  cared,  but  now  it  was  gall  and 
wormwood  to  him.  Yet  it  was  as  "  The  Four-bit 
Mansfield  "  that  he  had  won  Phyllis.  It  would  not 
do  to  forget  that.  Winning  Phyllis  had  been  the 
most  wonderful  event  in  his  life,  little  though  he 


350  INFATUATION 

had  appreciated  it  at  the  time.  Looking  back  at 
it  all  he  was  astounded  at  his  own  blindness;  as- 
tounded and  frightened,  too,  to  recall  how  easily 
the  affair  might  have  had  a  different  ending.  Love 
was  a  queer  business;  he  hadn't  really  cared  very 
much  for  her  at  first;  he  had  simply  taken  her 
because  she  was  so  bewitchingly  pretty  —  and  with 
such  innocence  had  offered  herself;  and  yet,  bit  by 
bit,  it  had  grown  to  this,  grown  into  something 
that  was  the  only  thing  in  life.  He  could  readily 
conceive  himself  dying  for  Phyllis  if  it  meant  sav- 
ing her  or  protecting  her,  and  that  with  no  torn-fool 
fuss  either,  or  theatrics. 

A  fellow  couldn't  hope  to  carry  away  all  the 
prizes,  and  he'd  rather  be  a  "  Four-bit  Mansfield  " 
with  Phyllis  than  the  biggest  kind  of  a  star  without 
her.  What  a  gay,  gentle,  insinuating,  clever  little 
wretch  she  was!  He  could  come  home  in  the 
damnedest  humor  —  it  hurt  him  to  think  how  often 
he  had  —  so  cranky  and  impatient  and  cross  that 
any  other  woman  in  the  world  would  have  flounced 
into  a  fury  —  and  little  by  little  she  would  coax 
him  and  pet  him  and  smooth  him  down  till  instead 
of  flinging  plates  at  each  other,  as  most  people  would 
have  done,  by  George,  she'd  be  sitting  on  his  knee, 


INFATUATION  351 

and  he'd  be  smiling  down  at  her,  a  thousand  times 
more  in  love  than  ever,  with  such  a  pang  of  self- 
reproach,  and  such  a  new  understanding  of  her 
sweetness  and  tenderness  that  his  heart  would  swell 
till  he  could  hardly  speak. 

When  Adair  left  his  house  that  afternoon  to 
call  on  Heney,  he  noticed  a  large,  luxurious  limous- 
ine snailing  along  Fifty-eighth  Street  as  though 
the  chauffeur  was  searching  for  a  number;  and  he 
wondered  what  so  fine  a  car  could  be  doing  in  such 
a  mean  neighborhood.  Had  he  seen  it  stop  in  front 
of  his  own  door  he  would  have  been  more  surprised 
still,  for  that  was  what  it  did,  to  the  extreme 
gratification  of  the  youngsters  playing  about  the 
sidewalk.  A  gentleman  alighted,  rang  the  bell 
marked  "Adair,"  pushed  open  the  door  when  it 
began  to  emit  mysterious  clicks  of  welcome,  and 
toiled  up  those  interminable  stairs  till  he  found 
Phyllis  awaiting  him  at  the  entrance  of  her  little 
apartment. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said,  "  I'm  looking  for 
Mr.  Adair?" 

Phyllis  saw  before  her  a  thin,  dark,  exceedingly 
well-dressed  man  of  about  forty,  with  an  aquiline 


352  INFATUATION 

nose,  a  pale  handsome  face,  and  an  air  of  noticeable 
distinction  and  importance. 

"  I'm  sorry,  but  he  has  just  gone  out,"  she  an- 
swered. "  I  am  Mrs.  Adair  —  will  you  not  come 
in?" 

He  followed  her  into  the  sitting-room  with  a 
manner  of  such  ease  and  good-breeding  that  Phyllis 
was  suddenly  transported  back  to  her  former  ex- 
istence, and  tingled  with  a  pleasurable  curiosity. 

"  Perhaps  I  can  do  instead,"  she  said,  smiling, 
and  offering  the  stranger  a  chair. 

"  Not  only  as  well  —  but  better,"  he  returned. 
"  If  I  had  not  heard  about  you  I  should  not  be 
here  at  all."  He  kept  staring  at  her  in  a  keen, 
questioning  way  with  something  of  the  penetration, 
and  the  appearance  of  inner  mental  working  of 
some  great  specialist  studying  a  patient.  Though 
continuing  to  look  at  her,  Phyllis  could  feel  that 
those  brilliant  eyes  had  left  nothing  in  the  room 
unnoticed,  and  she  realized  with  a  twinge  how 
pinched  and  shabby  it  all  must  seem  to  him. 

"  I  am  Rolls  Reece,  the  dramatist,"  he  observed 
at  last.  "  It  may  be  that  you've  never  heard  of 
me,  though  I  hope  you  have  —  for  it  will  facilitate 
matters." 


INFATUATION  353 

Of  course  that  name  was  familiar  to  Phyllis. 
Rolls  Reece  was  the  author  of  more  successful  plays 
than  any  man  in  America.  He  was  the  founder 
of  a  school  —  his  own  school  —  and  to  take  a 
foreign  word  for  which  we  have  no  equivalent 
he  was  essentially  a  fcministe.  In  representing 
nice  women  on  the  stage,  women  of  refinement  and 
position,  he  had  a  field  in  which  he  stood  para- 
mount. Not  that  he  confined  himself  wholly  to 
plays  of  this  type,  however.  He  was  an  indefat- 
igable worker;  with  an  ambition  that  balked  at 
nothing ;  he  was  always  reaching  out,  always  trying 
experiments;  a  piece  of  his,  Money,  the  King,  had 
been  strength  and  brutality  personified. —  That  it 
was  Rolls  Reece  who  was  before  her  filled  Phyllis 
with  a  sudden  and  gratified  astonishment. 

"  Certainly  I  know  your  name,"  she  said. 
"Who  is  there  that  doesn't!" 

He  waved  the  compliment  from  him  with  a  ges- 
ture of  his  hand  —  a  hand  as  fine  and  small  as  a 
woman's.  One  invariably  associated  Rolls  Reece 
with  those  fine,  small  hands,  which,  when  he  grew 
excited,  gripped  themselves  on  his  chair  with  the 
tenacity  of  a  sailor's  in  the  rigging  of  a  ship.  It 
showed  the  importance  he  attached  to  this  interview 


354  INFATUATION 

that    he    was    already    beginning    to    clench    the 
furniture. 

"  My  dear  lady,"  he  went  on,  "  I  have  to  be 
frank  with  you  —  and  being  frank,  especially  in 
regard  to  an  absent  husband,  is  neither  easy  nor 
agreeable.  Perhaps  I  had  better  give  you  the  sugar 
on  the  pill  first;  and  that  is  I  have  outlined  a  play 
that  I  should  like  to  write  with  the  idea  of  Mr. 
Adair  creating  the  central  figure.  If  I  could 
write  it  with  him  in  mind,  I  am  presumptuous 
enough  to  think  I  could  make  a  big  thing  of  it. — 
He  could  do  it,  of  course  —  do  it  magnificently. 
This  talk  does  not  turn  on  his  talent,  his  ability, 
which  is  immense.  No,  no,  these  are  not  com- 
pliments. Years  ago  when  I  was  a  nobody  on  the 
Advertiser,  doing  theatrical  criticism  with  a  reck- 
lessness and  off-handedness  that  now  makes  my 
gooscflesh  quiver  to  look  back  on  —  just  a  know- 
it-all  young  ass  —  I  remember  the  profound  im- 
pression Mr.  Adair's  work  used  to  make  upon  me. 
I  have  often  seen  him  since,  going  out  of  my  way 
to  do  so  —  one  has  had  to,  you  know  —  and  that 
original  conviction  of  his  power  has  steadily  grown 
with  me." 

He    stopped,    giving   her   that   curious   look    of 


INFATUATION  355 

his,  so  grave,  and  yet  with  what  might  be  called  a 
smile  in  suspension. 

It  swiftly  lit  up  his  face  as  Phyllis  remarked: 
"Now  for  the  pill?" 

"  Yes,  the  pill,"  faltered  Rolls  Reece,  gripping 
the  arms  of  his  chair,  and  appearing  acutely  un- 
comfortable. "  Ahem,  the  pill  is  —  I  suppose  it 
isn't  grammatical  to  say  are  —  well,  in  fact,  some 
of  Mr.  Adair's  characteristics  that  those  who 
admire  him  most,  must  deprecate  and  deplore  — 
characteristics  that  have  unhappily  hampered,  or 
rather  so  far  have  ruined  his  career.  Please, 
please,  Mrs.  Adair,  do  not  stop  me!  This  is  not 
a  question  of  personalities  at  all.  Regard  me 
simply  as  a  contractor,  looking  for  a  first-class 
workman  —  Bill,  we'll  call  him;  and  it  having 
reached  me  in  a  round-about  way  that  Bill  has 
married  and  pulled  up,  I've  dropped  in  on  Mrs. 
Bill  to  make  sure." 

"Are  you  not  afraid  Mrs.  Bill  may  be  preju- 
diced in  her  husband's  favor?" 

"  My  dear  lady,  it  is  remarkable  to  find  any  one 
prejudiced  in  Bill's  favor!  That  it  should  be  his 
wife  is  all  the  better." 

"Better  for  what?" 


356  INFATUATION 

"  IVe  told  you  I  want  to  write  that  play  for 
him." 

At  this  Phyllis'  rising  ill-will  died  away.  There 
was  too  much  of  the  little  Frenchwoman  in  her 
for  her  not  to  become  diplomatic  and  cool  when  her 
husband's  interests  were  at  stake.  Instead  of 
making  a  hot  rejoinder,  she  replied,  with  a  frank- 
ness not  at  all  easy  under  the  circumstances :  "  I 
understand  perfectly  what  you  mean,  Mr.  Recce. 
It  is  true  he  has  spoiled  everything,  and  has  an 
awful  lot  to  live  down.  I  ought  to  be  grateful  to 
you  as  the  first  person  —  the  first  important 
person  —  who  has  realized  that  he  has  changed. 
But  how  am  I  to  convince  you  of  it  ? " 

"  By  speaking  just  as  you  do." 

"  Oh,  I  can  hardly  hope  that  a  wife's  word  will 
count  for  much.  Yet,  Mr.  Reece,  it  is  absolutely 
true." 

"  It  is  not  his  past  that  bothers  me,"  went  on 
Rolls  Reece.  "  Everybody  has  a  past,  and  I  was 
a  theatrical  critic  once  myself  —  but  what  I  want 
to  be  assured  of  is  that  he  won't  begin  a  new 
one.  Really,  Mrs.  Adair,  if  I  put  him  in  a  big 
Broadway  production  can  I  be  guaranteed  that  he 
will  —  behave  ?  " 


INFATUATION  357 

"  Yes." 

"And  neither  drink,  nor  quarrel  with  anybody, 
nor  punch  anybody's  head — (including  mine) — • 
or  calmly  leave  us  in  the  lurch  because  he  doesn't 
like  the  pattern,  say,  of  the  dressing-room  carpet  ?  " 

"  Wait  and  talk  with  him  yourself.  —  All  that 
folly  is  over  and  done  with." 

"  The  longer  I  live,"  observed  Rolls  Reece,  "  the 
more  I  appreciate  that  women  are  the  power  behind 
the  throne.  Every  man,  in  a  queer,  subtle  sort 
of  way,  reflects  some  woman.  I  came  here  to  see 
whom  Adair  was  reflecting,  and  if  I  hadn't  been 
satisfied  I  shouldn't  have  stayed.  My  interest 
is  selfish,  of  course.  My  unwritten  play  to  me 
is  much  more  important  than  Mr.  Adair;  other- 
wise —  to  me,  I  mean  —  his  peculiarities  of  char- 
acter would  be  of  supreme  unimportance. —  May 
I  say  he  reflects  an  unusually  charming  and  de- 
lightful one?" 

Phyllis  smiled. 

"  I  hope  that  means  it  is  all  settled  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  If  you'll  go  bond  for  him  —  yes." 

She  clapped  her  hands.  "  Oh,  I'm  so  glad,"  she 
cried.  "  Oh,  Mr.  Reece,  I  can  not  tell  you  how 
poor  we  are,  how  desperate.  It  has  been  such  a 


358  INFATUATION 

heart-breaking  struggle,  and  we  had  almost  reached 
the  giving-up  place. —  But  tell  me,  you  say  the  play 
is  not  written  yet  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no,  we're  talking  of  an  October  opening." 
October!  They  were  then  in  early  April.  The 
joy,  the  elation  died  under  that  crushing  blow. 
What  was  to  become  of  them  during  the  inter- 
vening months?  Phyllis  could  scarcely  speak,  the 
disappointment  was  so  keen.  "  It  will  be  very  hard 
for  us  to  wait,"  she  said  at  last.  "  Mr.  Adair  has 
to  go  back  to  the  cheap  theaters,  and  from  what  he 
said  I  am  afraid  he  will  have  to  sign  a  long 
contract." 

Under  any  other  circumstances  Rolls  Reece 
would  have  laughed.  Adair,  that  disreputable 
genius,  as  a  scrupulous  respecter  of  contracts,  fore- 
going the  star  part  in  a  New  York  production  at  the 
dictates  of  honor  and  conscience-  was  sublimely 
incredible.  But  nevertheless  Phyllis'  own  sin- 
cerity impressed  him.  Her  beauty  was  of  a  fine, 
sensitive,  aristocratic  type,  the  kind  that  the  dram- 
atist, of  all  men,  would  recognize  and  appreciate  the 
most.  The  proud  yet  touching  air,  the  exquisite 
girlishness,  the  arch,  appealing,  pretty  manners  — 
all  disturbed  him  with  a  feeling  that  verged  on 


INFATUATION  359 

jealousy.  No  doubt  Adair  had  altered.  To  be  be- 
lieved in  by  such  a  woman  surely  counted  for  some- 
thing; to  be  put  on  a  pedestal  by  her  was  to  stay 
there,  of  course;  it  was  impossible  to  conceive  any- 
thing low  or  underhanded  being  confided  to  one 
who  struck  him  as  the  embodiment  of  candor. 
The  surprise  was  how  Adair  had  ever  got  her. 

"  I  have  thought  of  all  that,"  he  said,  referring 
to  her  last  remark.  "  If  Mr.  Adair  will  be  satisfied 
with  modest  roles,  and  will  consent  to  go  on  the 
road,  I  can  contrive  to  keep  him  busy  the  whole 
summer."  In  the  mouth  of  any  other  man,  what 
he  added  would  have  sounded  intolerably  con- 
ceited ;  but  he  had  been  successful  too  long,  and  had 
grown  too  used  to  it,  for  the  sentence  to  be  any- 
thing but  matter-of-fact.  "  I  have  eight  companies 
out,  you  know,  and  whether  my  managers  like  it  or 
not,  they'll  have  to  find  room  for  your  husband." 

His  tone  was  so  considerate,  so  kind,  and  his 
eyes  gave  such  a  sense  of  dawning  friendship  that 
Phyllis'  reserve  melted.  She  spoke  eagerly,  with 
a  little  tremor  of  emotion,  and  a  delicious  con- 
sciousness; of  sympathy  and  responsiveness.  "  I 
want  to  tell  you  about  him,"  she  said.  "  I  couldn't 
do  it  before  when  it  seemed  in  doubt  whether  you'd 


360  INFATUATION 

« 
risk  your  play  with  him  or  not.     It  would  have 

seemed,  oh,  as  though  I  were  trying  to  plead  with 
you,  and  debasing  myself  and  him  to  win  you  over. 
But  now  that  it  is  settled  I  am  not  ashamed  —  no, 
Mr.  Reece,  I  am  proud  to  make  you  realize  how 
you  have  misjudged  him." 

With  this  as  a  beginning  she  told  him  of  their 
coming  to  New  York;  of  their  struggles  and  pri- 
vations; of  Adair's  unshaken,  unwavering  devotion 
during  those  bitter  days.  With  poverty  love  had 
not  flown  out  of  the  window ;  no,  it  had  drawn  them 
closer  together  than  ever  before.  She  might  never 
have  known  otherwise  the  depth  of  the  noblest  and 
tenderest  heart  that  ever  beat;  he  had  never  com- 
plained, never  railed  —  had  borne  himself  through- 
out with  a  sort  of  silent  fortitude,  and  oh, 
all  this  with  such  an  effort  to  be  cheerful, 
to  make  light  of  things  that  were  grinding 
them  to  pieces.  She  told  him  of  her  father's 
offer,  of  Adair's  passionate  rejection  of  it  at 
a  moment  when  he  was  next  to  starving;  of 
the  fight  with  Kid  Kelly,  and  the  hundred  dollars 
he  had  earned  at  such  a  cost.  Through  her  mist 
of  tears  she  saw  that  Rolls  Reece  was  not  unmoved ; 
his  eyes,  too,  were  moist;  once  he  took  her  hand, 


INFATUATION  361 

and  pressed  it  to  his  lips,  with  something  about 
their  being  friends  —  always  friends.  Throughout 
he  had  perceived  the  other  side  of  the  story,  the 
side  she  had  not  dwelt  on,  and  indeed  was  scarcely 
aware  of  —  her  own  intrepid  part  in  that  comrade- 
ship, her  own  sustaining  courage  and  love.  The 
picture  she  drew  of  Adair  conjured  up  for  the 
dramatist  another  even  more  touching;  and  old 
bachelor  that  he  was,  and  pessimist  of  pessimists 
on  the  marriage  question  he  momentarily  turned 
traitor  to  all  his  convictions. 

When  she  stopped,  with  a  sudden  shame  at 
having  unbosomed  herself  to  a  stranger,  and  in  a 
confusion  that  was  all  the  prettier  for  the  blush  that 
accompanied  it,  and  the  air  at  once  so  deprecating 
and  scared  as  though  she  were  disgraced  for  ever  — 
Rolls  Reece  hastened  to  save  her  from  the  ensuing 
embarrassment. 

"  You  mustn't  regret  having  taken  me  into  your 
confidence,"  he  said.  "  I'm  just  an  old  senti- 
mentalist, and  belong  more  than  anybody  to  that 
world  that  loves  a  lover.  It  is  worth  all  those 
stairs  to  hear  anything  so  really  affecting  and 
beautiful,  and  when  I  said  I  wanted  to  be  friends, 
I  meant  it." 


362  INFATUATION 

"  I'm  afraid  you're  almost  as  impulsive  as  I  am, 
and  as  indiscreet." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  lady,  if  it  wasn't  for  indiscretion 
what  a  dreary  planet  this  would  be  to  live  in.— 
Imagine  the  heartrending  effect  if  everybody 
thought  before  they  spoke,  and  men  were  all  wise, 
and  women  were  all  prudent!  Why,  what  would 
happen  to  dramatists?" 

"  You  are  nice,"  she  said,  giving  him  a  candid, 
smiling  look  in  which  there  was  a  lurking  roguish- 
ness  ;  "  and  I'm  glad  we're  going  to  be  friends ;  and 
I'm  not  a  bit  sorry  I  gave  you  a  peep  into  an  awfully 
hidden  place  —  a  girl's  heart,  you  know  —  though, 
of  course,  you  mustn't  expect  to  make  a  habit  of  it; 
and  I'm  glad  you're  the  great,  famous,  splendid 
Rolls  Reece,  and  are  going  to  like  me,  and  write 
Cyril  a  wonderful  play,  and  be  our  fairy  uncle 
for  ever  and  ever ;  and  some  day,  when  you  are  ac- 
cused of  plagiarism  or  something,  and  they  put  you 
in  jail,  I'll  come  down  to  the  prison  and  bring  you 
a  loaf  of  bread  with  a  file  in  it,  or  change  clothes 
with  you  in  your  cell,  and  then  it  will  come  home 
to  you  how  very  lucky  you  were  ever  to  know  me, 
and  you  will  skip  off  to  South  America  bursting 
with  gratitude." 


INFATUATION  363 

"  In  the  meanwhile  I'm  afraid  the  fairy  uncle  had 
better  bring  his  call  to  an  end,"  remarked  Rolls 
Reece.  "  It's  less  spectacular  —  though  I  can  still 
be  grateful,  mayn't  I?  Indeed,  I  am  so  happy, 
Mrs.  Adair,  for  you  have  convinced  me  in  more 
ways  than  you  are  aware  of  that  we  have  been 
unjust  to  your  husband,  and  that  I  may  safely  trust 
the  play  to  him." 

"  I  can't  help  doubting  whether  you'll  ever  come 
back  ?  "  she  said,  as  they  stood  confronting  each 
other.  "  It's  a  dream,  and  you  are  a  dream- 
dramatist,  and  I'll  wake  up  from  a  nap,  and  will 
find  everything  more  miserable  than  before  because 
of  it.  —  Some  day  you  will  know  what  this  means 
to  us,"  she  added  poignantly.  "  Some  day  when  — 
when  it's  long,  long  passed,  and  we  can  talk  about 
it  like  ordinary  people.  —  You  have  to  get  a  little 
way  off  to  be  sorry  for  yourself,  don't  you?  I  am 
just  beginning  to  see  how  unspeakably  wretched 
and  forlorn  we  were,  that  poor  boy  and  I,  though 
I  should  probably  have  never  found  it  out  if  it 
hadn't  been  for  you." 

"Well,  that's  over,"  said  Rolls  Reece  comfort- 
ingly. "  If  he'll  work  hard,  and  do  his  best,  I'll 
back  Mr.  Adair  through  thick  and  thin.  He  has  an 


364  INFATUATION 

unquestionable  talent;  it  will  be  a  pleasure,  an  in- 
spiration to  write  for  him ;  if  he'll  do  his  share,  I'll 
engage  to  do  mine,  and  between  us  we'll  keep  at 
it,  play  on  play,  till  we  land  a  winner.  Only  —  " 
and  here  he  paused,  and  raised  a  warning  finger. 

"  He'll  be  as  good  as  gold,"  said  Phyllis,  filling 
in  the  interval.  "  Don't  let  the  fairy  uncle  worry 
about  that." 

"  And  when  may  I  see  him  ?  " 

An  appointment  was  forthwith  made  for  the 
same  evening;  and  the  dramatist  shook  hands,  and 
was  about  to  go  when  Phyllis  exclaimed  again  that 
it  was  a  dream,  and  that  it  simply  couldn't,  couldn't, 
couldn't  be  true,  and  asked  him  laughingly  to  leave 
his  umbrella  as  something  tangible  to  show  Adair. 
Rolls  Reece  caught  at  the  notion,  but  instead  of 
anything  as  prosaic  as  an  umbrella,  slipped  off  a 
superb  ruby  ring  instead,  and  laid  it  on  the  table. 

"There's  the  pledge  of  the  fairy  uncle's  return," 
he  said  gaily,  and  hurried  away  before  it  could  be 
restored  to  him. 

"  Good  Heavens,  Phyllis,"  cried  Adair,  "  what's 
that  thing?" 
"  A  ring." 


INFATUATION  365 

"But  it's  a  ruby  —  why,  it's  valuable  —  where 
on  earth  did  it  come  from  ?  " 

"  A  fairy  uncle  left  it." 

"  Left  it  ?  " —  Adair  stared  at  her  astounded. 

'  Yes,  I  was  afraid  he  wouldn't  keep  his  promise 
to  come  back,  so  he  said  I  could  hold  it  by  way 
of  a  pledge." 

"But  who  is  he?" 

"  Rolls  Reece,  I  think  his  name  is." 

In  an  instant  he  was  by  her  side,  clutching  at 
her  arm. 

"  Phyllis  —  my  God  —  it  wasn't  really  Rolls 
Reece?" 

"  Yes,  Booful-love-darling,  it  just  was,  and  I've 
adopted  him  as  our  fairy  uncle,  and  he  has  adopted 
us,  and  he's  coming  back  at  nine  this  evening  to  talk 
things  over,  and  he  wants  to  star  you  in  a  new  play 
of  his,  and  listen,  listen,  Cyril,  he  believes  in  you, 
and  says  you  have  an  immense  talent,  and  says  he  is 
going  to  write  you  play  after  play,  and,  oh,  my 
darling,  my  darling,  my  darling  —  ! " 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

ROLLS    Reece   returned   and   redeemed   his 
ring,  and  attested  his  sincerity  in  manifold 
and  delightful  ways.     He  did  not  mince 
matters    with    Adair,    however,    and    put    it    to 
him   straight,    in   a   man-to-man   talk   that   lasted 
but    twenty    minutes    yet    in    which    everything 
was   said,    accepted,    and    agreed   on.     The    actor, 
dosed    alternately    with    home-truths    and    praise, 
emerged   triumphantly   from   the  ordeal. 

He  was  told  he  had  missed  a  magnificent  career; 
that  it  was  only  his  own  unmitigated  folly  he  had  to 
thank  for  it;  that  the  number  of  successful  drama- 
tists who  were  willing  to  write  plays  for  him  was 
reduced  to  precisely  one  —  and  that  one  was  none 
too  sure  of  his,  Adair's,  reformation  —  though  as 
confident  as  ever,  more  than  ever,  of  his  genius. 
That  word,  like  charity,  covered  a  multitude  of  sins, 
if  Rolls  Reece  could  say  that  nothing  else  mattered. 

366 


INFATUATION  367 

Adair,  in  fact,  let  the  whole  case  against  him  go  by 
default. 

"  I'm  changed,"  he  said  simply.  "  That's  all  be- 
hind me,  Reece.  The  reason  for  it  is  in  the  other 
room  there  —  and  I  should  think  the  sight  of  her  is 
worth  all  the  denials  and  protestations  I  could 
make." 

"  Yes,  indeed,  it  is,  Adair,"  said  Rolls  Reece. 

"  I  suppose  there  are  men  who  can  get  along  by 
themselves,  and  be  decent,"  remarked  Adair.  "  But 
I  need  girl-ballast  in  my  little  ship,  and  if  I  had  had 
it  earlier  I  shouldn't  have  made  such  a  confounded 
ass  of  myself." 

"  Then  we  can  count  it  as  all  arranged  —  and 
I'm  going  to  start  at  work  on  the  play  to-mor- 
row." 

"  It  may  sound  commonplace,"  said  Adair,  "  but 
apart  from  your  play,  and  success,  and  all  that  — 
I'd  like  to  make  her,  well,  you  know  —  feel  that  she 
hadn't  drawn  such  an  awful  blank  in  the  husband- 
raffle.  Oh,  God,  Reece,  I've  pulled  her  down  to 
this  — look  at  this  place  I've  made  her  live  in,  will 
you?  —  And  I  shan't  breathe  a  free  breath  till  I 
get  her  out  of  it," 


368  INFATUATION 

"  It  is  in  your  own  hands,  Adair." 

"  Perhaps  you  overestimate  my  —  well,  what  I 
can  do  ?  " 

"  No,  I  don't,  and  I'm  not  alone  in  that  either. 
Fielman,  Fordingham,  Taylor,  Niedringer  —  it's 
common  talk  with  all  of  them.  You  can  pull  it  off 
if  you  want  to." 

"  Oh,  Lord,  don't  say  that  again,  Reece.  If 
anybody  on  this  mortal  earth  ever  wanted  to,  it's 
me." 

"  Not  another  word  then.  You're  satisfied  and 
so  am  I;  and  if  you  should  ever  feel  discouraged, 
remember  there  are  only  about  thirteen  men  in 
America  who  can  act,  and  you  are  one  of  them,  and 
not  the  last,  either.  Let's  call  in  that  charming 
wife  of  yours,  and  see  if  she  doesn't  agree  with 
me." 

Rolls  Reece  secured  a  six  weeks'  engagement  for 
Adair  in  a  play  of  his  called  The  Upstarts,  that 
was  touring  Washington,  Baltimore,  Syracuse,  Cin- 
cinnati, and  what  are  called  the  near-by  cities.  The 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  week  seemed  a  veritable 
fortune,  though  it  was  judged  wiser  to  husband  it 
by  letting  Phyllis  remain  in  New  York,  and  thus 


INFATUATION  369 

save  the  heavy  traveling  expenses  that  would  other- 
wise have  been  incurred  for  her.  The  dormice 
had  learned  the  value  of  money  with  a  vengeance. 
Adair  himself,  once  the  most  careless  of  spenders, 
now  showed  an  economy  that  was  laughable  and 
pathetic.  He  foreswore  cigars ;  lived  in  the  cheap- 
est of  cheap  boarding-houses;  grudged  every  penny 
that  could  be  saved.  There  was  to  be  no  more 
shingle  for  dormice,  but  a  warm  little  nest  lined 
with  green  bills,  from  which,  in  hard  times,  they 
could  put  out  their  little  noses  unafraid. 

Rolls  Reece  expected  to  secure  him  another  en- 
gagement with  a  western  company  to  fill  in  the 
summer  months ;  and  with  such  an  agent  enlisted  in 
his  service  the  most  spendthrift  of  actors  needed 
to  have  taken  no  thought  for  the  future.  But 
Adair,  who  never  did  anything  by  halves,  was  cau- 
tious to  the  point  of  penury.  He  was  determined 
Phyllis  should  never  suffer  such  privations  again, 
and  those  who  called  him  miserly  and  mean  little 
suspected  the  reasons  that  made  him  appear  so. 
Phyllis  herself  was  kept  in  the  dark  lest  she  should 
emulate  his  example ;  and  the  savings-bank  account 
rose  and  rose  without  her  having  the  least  know- 
ledge of  it.  The  equivalent  of  cabs,  good  dinners, 


370  INFATUATION 

cigars,  wine,  expensive  rooms,  and  Pullman  berths 
stacked  themselves  in  that  yellow  pass-book,  and 
bore  witness  to  a  stoical  self-denial.  No  more 
shingles  for  dormice,  thank  you ! 

In  spite  of  the  separation  Phyllis  was  not  un- 
happy during  those  long,  silent  days.  Spring  was 
in  the  air,  and  her  heart,  too,  basked  in  that  inner 
sunshine  of  contentment  and  hope.  Like  a  weary 
little  soldier  she  was  glad  to  rest  on  the  battlefield 
beside  the  parked  cannon,  and  enjoy  the  contempla- 
tion of  victory.  Body  and  soul  had  been  sorely 
tried;  the  reaction  left  both  in  a  sweet  languor;  it 
was  pleasant  to  do  nothing;  to  lie  back  dreaming. 

Rolls  Reece  came  often  to  see  her,  and  many  a 
day  they  spent  in  his  big  motor  racing  over  the 
snowy  landscape  of  Long  Island  or  Westchester 
County.  He  sent  her  flowers;  he  was  assiduous  in 
the  little  attentions  women  like;  he  was  always  so 
cheerful,  so  helpful,  so  kind.  For  him  it  was  an 
intimacy  that  might  have  had  a  dangerous  ending. 
He  was  perilously  near  falling  desperately  in  love 
with  Phyllis,  and  the  latter  never  showed  more  ad- 
dress than  in  the  way  she  guided  him  past  the  rock 
on  which  their  friendship  might  have  foundered. 


INFATUATION  371 

She  was  quite  frank  about  it  —  disarmingly  frank. 
She  liked  him  too  well  to  lose  him,  and  told  him  so. 
and  was  prettily  imperious  with  him,  and  yet  never 
provocative  nor  coquettish.  A  man  and  woman 
friendship  is  nothing  without  sentiment,  but  it  has 
to  be  a  loyal,  tender  sentiment,  that  can  cause  neither 
the  least  self-reproach.  Rolls  Reece  slipped  by  the 
rock  unhurt,  admiring  as  he  did  so  the  adroitness 
of  the  young  beauty  who  he  knew  had  grown  so 
fond  of  him.  As  to  that  there  was  never  any  ques- 
tion—  it  was  self-confessed  —  and  being  a  man  he 
was  naturally  flattered  and  pleased. 

But  he  was  high-bred,  sensitive,  clever,  and  in- 
nately a  gentleman,  with  an  unusual  perception,  and 
a  taste  for  the  rarer  and  finer  qualities  of  women. 
Others  in  his  place  might  have  persevered  harder, 
and  then  turned  sullen.  He  did  neither.  Indeed, 
Phyllis'  whole  love-story,  as  it  came  out  by  de- 
grees, touched  him  profoundly.  Her  audacity,  her 
daring,  her  blind  reckless  headlong  surrender  to  the 
man  that  had  captivated  her  —  all  these  to  him  were 
more  than  moving.  A  woman  that  could  stake 
everything  for  love  was  altogether  to  Rolls  Recce's 
taste.  And  Phyllis  had  not  only  staked  everything, 
but  had  succeeded  in  the  more  difficult  task  of 


372  INFATUATION 

making  love  endure  and  grow.  There  were  many 
subjects  on  which  she  knew  nothing;  she  could  not 
have  told  the  name  of  the  vice-president,  and  she 
thought  the  Balkans  were  in  South  America,  but 
when  it  came  to  love  the  dramatist  was  amazed  at 
her  profundity.  On  this  topic,  however,  the  one 
topic  that  seriously  interested  her,  she  had  an  in- 
sight and  a  knowledge,  not  to  speak  of  a  whole 
whimsical  vocabulary  that  made  Reece  appreciate 
his  own  shortcomings.  Love,  passion,  sex  —  these 
were  the  real  things  of  life  and  that  demure  brown 
head  was  insatiably  concerned  with  them. 

Of  course,  the  new  play,  too,  came  in  for  an  end- 
less amount  of  talk  and  discussion.  It  was  to  be 
called  The  Firebrand,  and  every  few  days  Rolls 
Reece  had  a  little  sheaf  of  manuscript  to  read  to  her. 
It  dealt  with  a  young  man,  who,  in  the  whirl  of 
politics,  had  secured  the  place  of  a  police-court  mag- 
istrate in  a  low  quarter  of  Chicago.  The  suffering, 
misery  and  injustice  thus  passing  in  review  before 
him,  first  startles  and  then  rouses  a  nature  passion- 
ately sympathetic  and  humane.  His  decisions  are 
original,  picturesque,  and  conventions  are  torn  to 
pieces.  He  clashes  with  the  boss  who  has  put  him 
into  office,  and  defies  him.  The  young  judge  makes 


INFATUATION  373 

enemies  right  and  left;  alienates  the  family  of  the 
girl  he  is  engaged  to;  is  sold  up  at  auction  through 
liabilities  assumed  on  behalf  of  a  children's  society 
he  has  started. 

The  boss  leads  in  the  machinations  to  ruin  him, 
which  is  made  the  easier  by  the  firebrand's  own  hot- 
headedness  and  indiscretion;  the  third  act  is  in  an 
assignation  house  where  the  judge  is  trapped.  He 
explains  his  innocence  to  his  triumphant  tormentors ; 
he  tells  of  the  half-grown  girl  he  has  trailed  there, 
and  appeals,  with  a  fine  outburst,  to  their  humanity 
to  help  him  save  her;  the  boss  refuses,  and  taunts 
him  with  the  scandal  that  next  day  will  shake  Chi- 
cago. Then  the  judge  plays  his  trump  card,  and 
tells  them  what  he  had  been  trying  to  hold  back, 
that  the  girl  is  no  other  than  the  boss'  own  daugh- 
ter ;  and  smashing  open  a  door  discloses  her  and  the 
satyr,  who  has  brought  her  there.  This,  in  brief, 
was  the  play,  shorn  of  all  its  externals  —  an  in- 
tense, powerful,  essentially  modern  play,  brutally 
real,  and  yet  animated  by  a  burning  purpose,  and 
a  resentment  no  less  fiery  against  the  diabolical 
misgovernment  of  our  large  cities. 

Rolls  Reece  labeled  it  "  dangerous  goods,"  which 
in  truth  it  was,  and  was  correspondingly  uplifted. 


374  INFATUATION 

He  said  he  was  tired  of  writing  sugar-candy  plays, 
and  wished  to  show  his  detractors  that  he  could 
grapple  with  big  emotions  as  well  as  the  lesser, 
pink-tea  femininities  with  which  his  name  was  al- 
ways associated.  "  And  remember,  Mrs.  Adair," 
he  explained,  "  I  don't  want  a  goody-goody  young 
man  with  a  benevolent  forehead  and  a  spotless  past, 
and  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  accent  —  but  an  impatient,  chip- 
on-his-shoulder,  impulsive  fellow,  who  would  like 
to  get  off  the  bench  and  fight  somebody.  It's  a 
Cyril  Adair  play,  and  I  am  going  to  fit  him  as  care- 
fully as  a  Fifth  Avenue  tailor.  And  on  the  police- 
court  judge  side  of  it,  I  am  going  to  show  the  public 
the  colossal  power  those  men  have  for  good  or  evil. 
They  can  blight  more  human  lives  in  one  morning 
than  the  whole  Supreme  Court  could  do  in  ten  years. 
In  their  dingy  little  field  they  are  absolute  monarchs, 
from  which  there  is  no  appeal.  We  owe  thousands 
of  criminals  to  their  crass  stupidity,  and  when  they 
work  in  collusion  with  corrupt  politicians  they  are 
a  scourge  and  a  terror  to  every  decent  man  or 
woman  in  their  midst." 

The  dramatist  had  referred  several  times  to  a 
friend  of  his,  Andrew  Hexham,  whom  he  particu- 


INFATUATION  375 

larly  wished  Phyllis  and  Adair  to  meet.  Ordi- 
narily so  frank  he  was  somewhat  hazy  and  myste- 
rious in  his  references  to  this  personage,  who 
apparently  was  a  man  of  large  fortune,  and  of  con- 
siderable importance  in  theatrical  affairs.  Once 
Reece  dropped  his  play,  and  went  off  for  three  days 
—  an  extraordinary  lapse  from  his  habit  of  per- 
sistent industry  —  and  on  his  return  mentioned  he 
had  been  staying  with  Hexham,  smiling  in  a  queer, 
guilty  kind  of  way  that  tantalized  Phyllis'  curiosity. 
But  nothing  could  be  got  out  of  him  —  at  least 
nothing  that  could  explain  his  singular  entertain- 
ment whenever  Hexham's  name  came  up.  It 
seemed,  however,  that  this  man  had  to  be  won  over ; 
that  The  Firebrand  was  in  some  dim  manner  de- 
pendent on  his  good  will;  that  he  was  a  fussy, 
troublesome, '  dictatorial  person,  not  a  little  preju- 
diced against  Adair.  This  had  to  be  overcome  at  a 
meeting;  and  Phyllis,  especially,  was  commanded  to 
go  out  of  her  way  to  be  "  nice  to  him  "•  -"  You're 
such  an  irresistible  little  baggage  when  you  choose," 
said  Rolls  Reece.  "  I  want  you  to  tie  him  up  in 
bow-knots,  just  as  you  tied  me,  to  dazzle  him,  and 
then  we'll  sign  the  contract  right  there  before  he 
can  undazzle  himself." 


376  INFATUATION 

"  I'm  not  much  good  at  fascinating  people  unless 
I  like  them,"  returned  Phyllis  ingenuously  and 
doubtfully. 

"Oh,  you'll  like  him,"  protested  Reece.  "I'll 
answer  for  that,  you  know." 

"  Well,  I'll  do  my  best,"  said  Phyllis,  wondering 
to  herself  what  it  all  meant.  "  I'll  sit  very  close, 
and  make  dachshund  eyes  at  him,  and  encourage 
him  to  talk  about  himself.  That's  the  secret  of 
woman's  charm  when  you  analyze  it.  See  how  it 
caught  you ! " 

It  was  too  bad,  though,  that  Rolls  Reece  should 
have  chosen  the  Sunday  that  Adair  ran  over  from 
Philadelphia,  where  The  Upstarts  was  booked  for 
a  week.  The  pair  had  been  separated  for  nearly 
four  weeks,  and  Phyllis  wanted  her  husband  all  to 
herself.  Rolls  Reece,  Andrew  Hexham,  even  The 
Firebrand  itself,  were  very  secondary  things  when 
weighed  against  the  rapture  of  Adair's  return. 
She  pleaded  with  Rolls  Reece  to  postpone  the 
meeting  until  Monday  afternoon,  but  the  dramatist 
with  unexpected  obstinacy  stood  out  for  Sunday 
evening.  Hints  were  lost  on  him,  and  even  some 
pink-cheeked,  shy,  half-murmured  things  merely 


INFATUATION  377 

made   him   laugh   instead   of   relenting. —  Sunday 
night  it  had  to  be. 

But  to  do  him  justice,  the  dramatist  tempered 
severity  with  his  usual  generosity.  He  sent  a  prod- 
igal amount  of  flowers,  as  well  as  a  case  of  cham- 
pagne, and  would  have  contributed  his  colored  butler 
had  he  been  allowed  —  which  he  wasn't.  Phyllis 
said  that  the  Pest  Person  (as  all  that  day  she  hotly 
called  Mr.  Hexham)  —  the  Pest  Person  had  to  take 
them  as  they  were,  and  if  there  was  one  thing  worse 
than  a  hired  butler,  it  was\a  borrowed  one.  If  the 
Pest  Person  didn't  like  the  way  he  was  treated  — 
if  he  were  the  sort  of  Pest  Person  who  judged  peo- 
ple by  striped  nigger-trousers  and  gilt  chandeliers, 
why,  he  could  just  go  to  the  devil. —  Which  went  to 
show,  incidentally,  how  good  that  four  weeks'  rest 
had  been  for  Phyllis,  and  how  fast  she  was  getting 
back  her  former  spirit. 

At  nine  that  evening  Adair  and  Phyllis  were 
both  waiting  for  their  visitors.  True  to  her 
promise  to  Rolls  Reece  the  latter  had  dressed  her- 
self with  unusual  care;  and  Adair,  who  was  allowed 
to  see  but  not  touch,  swore  she  had  never  looked 
more  ravishing.  Her  fresh  young  womanhood  en- 


378  INFATUATION 

tranced  him;  she  was  so  slender,  so  graceful,  so 
girlish,  and  the  red  rose  in  her  hair  was  not  more 
exquisite.  What  a  beauty  she  was!  How  alto- 
gether perfect  from  the  top  of  her  dark  head  to  her 
trim  little  feet !  —  And  the  saucy  mouth  that  was 
always  ready  to  part  on  the  dazzling  teeth;  the 
low,  sweet,  eager  voice;  the  bubbling,  caressing 
laugh  —  after  four  weeks  of  loneliness,  of  dismal, 
dreary  separation,  it  was  as  though  he  had  never 
really  appreciated  them  before;  and  it  was  intolera- 
ble to  be  stuck  to  a  chair  and  forbidden  to  move 
when  everything  in  him  bade  him  seize  her  in  his 
arms,  and  assert  his  master's  right. 

Worst  still,  Rolls  Reece  and  the  Pest  Person 
were  late.  The  minutes  ticked  away  —  five  past, 
ten  past,  a  quarter  past,  twenty  past  —  and  yet  there 
was  neither  dramatist  nor  Pest. —  Ah,  there  they 
were  at  last!  Phyllis  ran  to  admit  them,  fumbling 
at  the  latch  of  the  door  in  her  excitement.  She 
opened  it  on  the  dimly-lighted  landing,  and  held 
out  both  hands  in  welcome  to  Rolls  Reece,  who 
stood  before  her.  His  friend  was  hidden  in  the 
shadow,  but  as  she  glanced  towards  him  recogni- 
tion suddenly  pierced  her  heart.  It  was  her  father ! 

All. he  said  was  her  name,  and  that  so  humbly, 


INFATUATION  379 

and  with  an  intonation  so  affecting  that  she  flung 
her  arms  about  him  in  a  paroxysm  of  tenderness, 
unmindful  of  everything  save  the  love  that  suddenly 
flooded  her  whole  being.  Misunderstanding,  self- 
justification,  the  rights  or  wrongs  of  their  unhappy 
estrangement  —  all  were  forgotten,  all  were  swept 
away.  Clinging  to  him  she  guided  him  along  the 
passageway  and  into  the  sitting-room,  where  Adair, 
bewildered  and  astonished,  was  waiting  to  receive 
them.  Even  in  the  throes  of  that  tumultuous  mo- 
ment Phyllis,  trying  to  see  with  her  father's  eyes, 
took  in  Adair  with  a  welling  pride.  Never  had  he 
appeared  to  her  more  manly,  more  distinguished 
or  noble ;  and  when  she  said :  "  My  husband, 
Daddy,"  it  was  with  a  little  air  that  told  of  her 
own  content  with  the  man  of  her  choice. 

"  I  am  here  in  the  character  of  a  repentant  father, 
with  ashes  on  his  head,"  said  Mr.  Ladd ;  and  going 
up  to  Adair,  held  out  his  hand.  "  Will  you  not 
forgive  me?"  he  asked,  "and  may  we  not  be 
friends?" 

Rolls  Reece  had  looked  forward  to  being  present 
at  this  evening  of  reconciliation ;  of  being  patted  on 
the  back  for  the  big  part  he  had  taken  in  it;  of 
drinking  his  own  champagne  amid  the  ensuing  fes- 


380  INFATUATION 

tivity  and  joy.  But  as  he  saw  the  two  men's  hands 
meet  and  grasp;  as  he  saw  Phyllis  press  between 
them,  her  eyes  suffusing,  and  sobs  choking  her  ut- 
terance, he  realized  that  he  was  gazing  at  a  scene 
too  sacred  for  him  to  share.  He  silently  effaced 
himself,  shut  the  door  without  noise,  and  tiptoed 
down  the  stairs. 

"  It's  a  good  world,"  he  murmured  to  himself, 
"yes,  a  damned  good  world;  and  in  spite  of  what 
people  say,  things  often  work  out  right." 


THE  END 


SEP  8     1982 


DATE  DUE 


PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 


3  1970  00690  4921 


A  A      000200672    4 


